
iillllil I i ii^^^^ 



irpr.-/* I 



Frye 



LIBRARY OF CONG^SS. 

Chap. Copyright No. 

Shelf.:r_..f^S* 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



The Substance of his House 



POEMS 



Bv y 
PROSSER HALL FRYE 



" Thinketh it came of being ill at ease ; 
He hated that he cannot change his cold 
Nor cure its ache." 

Caliban on Setebos. 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK LONDON 

27 WEST TWENTV-THIRD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND 

Ube Iknicbecbociser press 
1896 






2.2> 






Copyright, 1896 

BY 

PROSSER HALL FRYE 



Ube iKnicbecboclsec iptesa, Dew ISocfe 



DEDICATED TO 

HENRY MARVIN BELDEN 



CONTENTS. 



LYRICS. 



PAGE 

The Substance of his House 3 

Christmas Morning ig 

Outgrown 26 

Moon-Kissed 33 

The Queen 38 

A Dead Soul 61 

The Dilettante on Shadows 67 

Youth Dead 77 

The World, the Flesh and the Devil ... 88 

The Adventurer 92 

Brief as Woman's Love gg 

As she Playeth 102 

Serenade 105 

At Parting 106 

Song 108 

Midsummer 109 

A Vision from Heraclitus no 

The Evening of St. Valentine's Day . . .114 

Rondeau : On Freya's Day 117 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Chance ii8 

Bereavement iig 

Wishes 124 

The Seer 126 

A Dream 128 

A Grave-Song 132 

When Thou art Gone 134 

Failure 135 

Unheard 137 

The Tired Love 139 

For her Mood 141 

On the Upland 143 

In May 145 

An Invitation 147 

Irene : Empress at Constantinople . . . 148 

A May Night: Experiments 152 

On the River 157 

Futility 162 

Silence 165 

The End of Summer 167 

SONNETS. 

Sunset 173 

Written in a Volume of Sonnets . . . .174 

New Year 175 

Midnight 176 

Rest 177 

Heredity 178 



CONTENTS. Vll 

PAGE 

Restitution 179 

Mistaken i8o 

Mutation 181 

Past Prime 182 

Blood-Root 183 

Intermission 185 

Resurrection 186 

Birth 187 

Not to Be 188 

Separation 189 

Absence 190 

Lear 191 

Unanswered 192 

Indulgence 193 

Life and Death 194 

Division 195 

Evasion 196 

Lost Days 197 

Awakening 198 



LYRICS. 



THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS HOUSE. 

You say you do not love me any more ; 
And so I may not hold your hand or kiss 
Your forehead as I used, for it is wrong 
To cling together after love is gone 
Except for one farewell and final kiss — 
I will not take it now but wait a while, 
Since one should never hurry on an end, 
For the end always hastens of itself ; 
The things we know are temporal, and love — 
No matter, let us talk of something else. 

The days are growing shorter ; we are done 
With the long summer-evenings and the dusk 
We thought was made especially for us. 
Now after supper one can hardly see 
Across the narrow river to the marsh 
Where weep the willows and where moves the mist 
And where the weeds are trailing in the water ; 
And soon the ghosts will go along the bank 
3 



4 THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS HOUSE. 

Like lean and hungry grayhounds in the mist 
Across the moon and willows and wet weeds, 
Just as they used to do before you came ; 
And I shall feel old habits drag me down 
And fatal fingers tighten in the darkness 
About my throat. 

There is the little star 
That I named after you and watched all summer, 
Hanging already on the hopeless edge 
Of the horizon but a single hour 
Since sunset ; soon it will not rise at all. 

Before you came, the summer-time was dull, 
Though all day long through clouds of floating 

dust 
That the hard heat made almost luminous 
The steady sunlight smote the grass-grown slopes 
Yellowish green by the reflected light. 
All day behind the shelter of my blinds 
I watched the noiseless shadow climb the walls 
As the sun fell ; then felt the breeze of night 
Grow stronger, blowing on the world the cool 
Of the stars, and watched the people go abroad, 
And caught a woman's laugh or saw her throat, 
Bared to the dewfall, glimmer in the dusk ; 
As all the life in which I had no share 



THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS HOUSE. 5 

Paraded by me like a spectacle, 

Till the unsatisfied, vague midnight drew 

My restless feet to wander by the river. 

It was by this same river we first met — 
A little higher where the stream is full 
And in the spring runs level with its banks, 
Like headlong youth with hope ; and it was June 
And the first flush of summer. In the woods 
The birds were singing, for the morn was new. 
The dewdrops were like eyes amid the grass, 
The river ran in jewels to the sun. 
And all the young things of the earth were glad 
So that you often smiled without a reason 
Or broke into involuntary song. 
But I was brooding on my dark dead mind, 
And had no feeling for such things as these, 
Although I knew that they were fair and good 
And altogether were desirable ; 
So without feeling we are dry and dust, 
A little pinch of dust between the fingers 
Of a brute-universe. You walked beside, 
Speaking but little and that little well. 
I liked you for your quietness of face, 
Not immobile but having moods like music — 
Such voiceless music as a player hears 



6 THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS HOUSE. 

Before he puts his fingers to the keys. 

We walked away the morning. When you spoke, 

Your voice was Hke the running of a brook 

That seems a portion of oneself, nor jars 

Like things external. 

When we walked again, 
It was a little later in the month 
Across the moonlight lying on a garden, 
Broad and sufficient — where red roses grew, 
A place of promise once but run to waste 
And bounded by an indistinct gray hedge. 
On one side was a brook, and on another 
The dusty roadway like a path of ghosts. 
And on the third an orchard and a meadow. 
Covered with daisies, an unearthly sea 
Beneath the naked footsteps of the moon, 
And on the fourth a tangle of old vines, 
Where there had been a terraced vineyard once — 
All fair with moonlight. It is good to live 
Simply for the recurrence of such nights 
As June holds in her bosom, close and warm 
When all the universe is sick with love ; 
For love is not restricted to the world 
Of men, but moves in the inanimate. 
One atom draws another as you draw me ; 



THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS HOUSE. 

And if they may, they meet and are fulfilled ; 
One planet draws another through the void 
By some mysterious strange means ; the stars 
Take them companions in their loneliness ; 
The witch-face of the moon is shrunken and pale 
With longing for the earth ; the rooted plants 
Communicate by means of messengers — 
For everything according to its order 
So moves and is so moved, or else were dead ; 
But woe to him who loves himself alone 
And lives thereby, as I had lived so long. 
l"he influence of moon and star and flower, 
The summer and luxuriance of earth, 
Worked in me like a ferment, for your face 
Gave purpose to my wandering desires 
And thoughts diffused. I cannot analyze. 
As is so fashionable now, this love — 
How much is spirit and how much is flesh, 
What part is passionate and what part pure, 
According to the standards of to-day, 
Or how the higher builds upon the lower ; 
But somehow from the dunghill and the dirt 
There springs the incorruptible white flower. 

After the birth of love, unrecognized 
And unconfessed as yet, we often walked 



8 THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS HOUSE. 

Together while the unreckoned wealth of June 
Was scattered with her prodigal profuseness — • 
Sometimes in the morning when the grass was 

fresh 
And covered with the cobwebs spun by night ; 
Rarely at noonday drowsy with the bees 
And dizzy with the heat ; but frequently 
When the quail whistled all along the upland, 
Or in the lovers' twilight with the star 
Of evening and the kindling fireflies. 
So June went onward, merging with July. 
One evening we were walking in a wood 
Along a narrow road where damp and dark 
The shadows were at noon ; between the ruts 
The coarse grass flourished and the toadstools 

grew 
Like morbid fancies in a mind diseased ; 
While here and there beside the path were pools 
Where water had collected in the spring 
And the sun could not drink it for the leaves. 
We had gone outward by a devious way ; 
But being overtaken by the dark 
Followed the shortest path on our return. 
And you were startled, for the shadows crept 
Like formless insects up and down the trees, 



THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS HOUSE. 9 

And straggled now and then across the road. 

Our talk was whispered as in deference 

To the unknown evil that besieges life. 

The stifling heat was like a heavy hand 

Laid at the base of the brain. And so we went 

Subdued until a turning of tlie road 

Revealed a low, broad marsh, and in the midst 

A something white and shapeless like a shroud 

Over a corpse that rose and beckoned to us. 

Then you were scared and caught at me and 

clung, 
So I forgot the shadow on the marsh, 
Feeling your body and the warmth of it, 
The pressure of your arms, your straying hair, 
The breath of your moist mouth relaxed a little 
With heat and hurry and the sudden fright ; 
Until the fire smouldering in my veins 
Flamed like a conflagration and I drew 
Your face a little nearer so your lips 
Kindled from mine and in the night were red, 
And you forgot the shadow on the marsh. 
But when we drew apart to go our way — 
Vet our eyes mingled as we went — you said, 
" Where is the ghost that startled me ? " I looked 
And all about the marsh was one wide mist. 



lO THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS HOUSE. 

Diaphanous and uniform. I answered, 

" It was the mist just rising." But you shook 

Your head and laughed, replying : " It was silly 

To tremble so, but it was not the mist 

That frightened me ; it was some kindly ghost 

That made you say you love me. But I wish 

You had not told me all the things you have. 

For you said once when we first knew each 

other, 
' Love is the fancy of a summer-day. 
Born of the heat and bound to perish with it.' 
I am so very sorry for those words, 
For who refuses to believe in love 
Can never love ; and he who thinks love ends 
Can never love." Then I, caressing you, 
Made answer, thinking only of myself : 
" Love is as changing as the rest of life, 
And no one can predict the day of change. 
One love may die to-morrow and another 
Endure through this vicissitude to death. 
And even in death be stable — and beyond. 
But since your love is very sweet, my love. 
Sweeter than all the drippings of the comb, 
The ooze of honey on the feet of bees. 
Let us two love each other while we can. 



THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS HOUSE. I I 

Although to-morrow is not to-day and none 

Can answer for it — for your love is sweet." 

This I said thinking of my fickleness 

That I should change the first and so escape. 

But these words pleased you little, for you drew 

Your clinging hand from mine and went alone. 

This made me sadder than the falling night is 

Or than the dark environs of the grave ; 

For I declare that even in that hour 

I loved you better than the blind love light 

Or exiles love their native earth. We went 

So separated till we left the road, 

And here and there began to gleam the lights 

Such as a country village shows at night — 

Few, indistinct and distant. Then I said — 

My voice belied me, it was hard and cold 

While I was molten, " Do not leave me so." 

It might have been the voice of one who speaks 

Supplying words he thinks appropriate 

To some dull story that he does not like. 

But it was all you needed ; for your mouth, 

Which had been wilted like a flower by frost, 

Bloomed, and your arms like tendrils clasped and 

clung, 
And your tongue rippled, " But I love you so," 



12 THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS HOUSE:. 

Over and over like a bird whose song 
Never becomes monotonous. 

We parted ; 
I walked the night to breathe and think awhile. 

Listen ! Do these things move you not at all ? 
Your eyelids do not flutter and your mouth 
That used to be so tremulous, is still, 
Like a dead mouth, and mine is living yet — 
I would it had been ashes ere this day, 
I would that it might crumble into dust ! 
You think that I deceive you, that I lie, 
That I have never loved you, that I love 
Only myself and joy in my own words. 
Oh, God ! I live in such a narrow house, 
Builded of clay — so low, contemptible, 
With only two poor windows near the roof 
To see through, and I shriek through one small 

chink. 
If I could break my wall and crash through yours 
Into your house till standing face to face 
With you yourself I made you understand, — 
Let me alone ; I am immured and mad ; 

My house is but a bedlam 

You have heard 
Some talk like this before ! It suits my mood ! 
Bear with me for the little that is left. 



THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS HOUSE. 13 

July ran out its course and August passed 
Far on into the dog-days when the heat 
Was like a passion. In the night no sleep 
Visited me, but wild chaotic dreams 
Like a fool's thought ; and in the stifling day 
The body was rebellious as a beast. 
Young love is helpless, for it gives itself 
So freely, and its blood is exigent. 
I have protected you against myself 
In the temptations of the August nights, 
Perhaps against yourself — I do not know — 
These things are best forgotten ; you begin 
A fair new life and leave the old to me. 

One morning ere the sun as yet was high, 
You came, and saying, " Kiss me on the eyes, 
For I must leave you for a little while. 
And yet a little while from you is long," 
Began to tremble and reiterate, 
" My love, I wept all night to think of this — 
That I must go ; and yet I cannot go ; 
Oh, do not let me loose but hold your arms 
About me that I never can go out, 
For I am still unsatisfied with love." 
With such like repetitions putting off 
My hands you went and left me standing dumb, 
Helpless, benumbed, bewildered, and confused. 



i4 THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS HOUSE. 

So you departed with the month of August ; 
And after the excitement of your presence 
Followed an interval of calm like that 
Which lets an agitated water clear, 
The rubbish settles in a sediment, 
Above it moves the bright transparent mass 
Whereof a man may drink and be unhurt 
As the whole substance purifies itself. 
This was accomplished gradually. First, 
There was a period of sharp distress 
After your body was removed from mine, 
As when a customary stimulant 
Has been withdrawn, and then a bitter outbreak 
Succeeded by the dumbness of exhaustion, 
And finally a calm through which love moved 
Silent and deep and strong and self-assured. 

The afternoon was drooping in the West 
Like a day-weary flower on its stalk, 
A solitary cricket uttering 
Its thin and intermittent noise forestalled 
The autumn, as you came before the sun 
Over the summit of the sentinel-hill 
And down the track of sunlight on the slope, 
Your features in the shadow but your hair 
Lustrous and radiant. I watched you come 



THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS HOUSE. 1$ 

Out of the purple twilight at the base ; 

Your face seemed chiselled of some cold gray 

stone 
Like an old statue's in the shifting sand 
Of a great desert when the night descends 
In its oppression and its mystery ; 
Your eyes were full of broken promises ; 
Your voice was like a trumpet of retreat 
In a lost battle. " Let your arms hang loose 
Since I have brought no love to your embrace 
For I have gone too far on a wrong road, 
Being mistaken else or misinformed " — 
With many other things I did not hear 
For puzzling on these hard and cruel words. 
This was an hour or two hours since, 
For we have spoken much to no effect. 
Already in the valley it is late ; 
For see ! There is the river in the hollow 
Like a dark saying in the mouths of men. 
Beyond the river are the marsh and mist 
Where rose the ghost ; and out beyond the 

marsh 
But hidden by the trees that fringe its borders. 
As lashes fringe the heavy lids of sleep. 
The low secluded meadow of our love — 



1 6 THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS HOUSE. 

I know you loved me then undoubtingly ; 

The yearning of your mouth, your tunid words, 

The yielding of your body and your cheek 

Leaning to mine involuntarily 

Sufficed to show me, though you now deny 

That these things are significant. You say, 

" 1 was mistaken," or " I thought I loved," 

Or " Do not blame me for my ignorance 

Of my own mind," or like absurdities. 

The river never freezes by mistake, 

Nor does the new moon shine through ignorance, 

Nor on your face had been the signs of love 

Had love been absent. Therefore say no more ; 

I know that this is but a lie of yours ; 

And yet a lie may often serve the truth 

In being wiser than the serpent is 

And far too subtle. You have lied too well, 

For were your story more improbable, 

I should perhaps have been deceived by it. 

Lo ! I have given the substance of my house 
For love, and it is utterly condemned. 
There are the broad bare walls, the clean-swept 

floors. 
The room with all its furniture removed 
That I made fit for you to occupy — 



THE SUBSTANCE OF HIS HOUSE. IJ 

It rests, a widower that never knew 

The shy and sweet confusion of his bride. 

Oh, love, my love, I dread the winter nights 

In the dismantled ruin you have left 

When all the faces that I ever knew 

Will come and mock at me and say : " He thought 

To make himself secure against the dark 

And bitter cold and utter loneliness 

Of an unloved old age ; he thought to shut 

The memory of earlier failure out 

By an enduring joy, and lo ! he moves 

An alien among the homes of men." 

There is the bait that has enticed so many — 
Prosperity with children in its lap 
That looks upon a fat and fruitful land. 
Being content to sit self-satisfied 
All day and sleep all night. So you prefer. 
I am myself and I will work it out ; 
I know, if ever I attain my end. 
The end will be sufficient of itself ; 
I know, if never I attain my end. 
It will be better to have striven for it. 
Although I die with beggar-s in a ditch. 
Than live and love, and make myself as those 
Whom you admire — men of small, mean minds 



3 THE SUBSTANCE OT HIS HOUSE. 

And even smaller, meaner souls. Then go, 
And leave me to the river and the marsh, 
The weeping willows and the moving mist. 
The weeds and the emaciated moon. 
The ghostly brooding on my dark dead mind. 



CHRISTMAS MORNING. 

AN ODE. 



In early winter ere the wind-blown flakes 
Of snow in pity of the naked earth 
Have covered it, the world is void of mirth ; 
The slanting sun at noonday hardly breaks 

The bank of clouds that veiled the spectral morn ; 
The heavens lie forlorn, 
For every established splendid star 
And wandering reflective moon is hid, 
While like the pale and melancholy day 
The night is sad and gray, 
The patient brutes lie shivering amid 
The stiffened grass — so mournful all things are 
Save those expectant hearts that understand 
The day is close at hand 
When maids green wreaths and bright-red berries 

bring, 
And all the joyous youths antiphonally sing. 
19 



20 CHRISTMAS MORNING. 



But suddenly there is a wondrous change : 

The snow-clouds drag and droop, the air is full 

Of particles opaque and white like wool, 
Till summer's gaudy gown seems old and strange. 

Under the sky's assumed, indulgent frown 

The winds go up and down ; 
And merrily to aid the welcome work 

Hurry to pile the snow in fleecy drifts 

That nature's task may be the sooner done 
And that the loosened sun 

Set free the crystal colors from the rifts 
Of frozen ponds and rivers where they lurk. 

And all the earth be delicately dressed 

For its expected guest. 
While maids green wreaths and bright-red berries 

bring, 
And all the joyous youths antiphonally sing. 

III. 

Behind us lies the dark uncertain time 

Between the seasons. Look not back nor weep, 
But let it seem a short and troubled sleep 

From which we waken to another prime. 



CHRIS TMA S MORNING. 2 I 

For now that our new days at last begin, 
The air is cold and thin 
With fretted frost, but wonderfully clear ; 
And to the quiet bosom of the hill, 

Across the meadows, woods, and whitened 

fields, 
The timid distance yields 
Its long kept secrets, and the winds are still 
Along the morning's reddened verge to hear : 
And so let all the coming hours accord 
To glorify their Lord ; 
Let maids green wreaths and bright-red berries 

bring. 
And all the joyous youths antiphonally sing. 



IV. 



But winter has enchained the centuries, 
No longer do the bright-faced seraphim 
Come winging down the buoyant winds and hymn 

With their deep-toned celestial harmonies 
For shepherds on the hills. The world is old 
And torpid with the cold ; 

Its splendor is but pale reflective ice 

Above the shrivelled life that once was warm ; 



22 CHRISTMAS MORNING. 

Even the lean, quick face of man grows dull, 
The wintry rigors lull 
His energies to sloth, and shrink the form 
That rose triumphant once. By what device, 
By what strange charm shall numbing snow and 

rime 
Be melted from the time 
Till maids green wreaths and bright-red berries 

bring. 
And all the joyous youths antiphonally sing ? 



V. 



Now some have builded temples to the mind 
Out of the shapeless weather-beaten blocks 
That winds and rains have broken from the rocks 
Of mountain-summits. There they have enshrined 
An image of their own, which they call Law, 
Whereto they bow in awe, 
" We worship thee, the pitiless and strong." 
Others, whose leisure gives them little ease, 
Bestir themselves to search old creeds (as 

Rome, 
Before she fell, brought home 
Outlandish gods) for somewhat that will please 



CHRISTMAS MORNING. 23 

Their listless and luxurious moods ; while wrong 
Fattens upon the bodies of the poor. 
How long shall this endure, 

Ere maids green wreaths and bright-red berries 
bring, 

And all the joyous youths antiphonally sing ? 



And in the world disports a multitude 

Of satyrs, from whose teeth the lips gape wide 

With greed and lust that are unsatisfied, 
Who, while the famished cry aloud for food, 

Drench deep their senses with forgetful wine, 

With sun-bleached poppies twine 
Their heavy heads. An antic shape, half goat. 

With legs and hoofs in fashion of a brute, 
And with its angel's wings laid slanting wise 
Across its human eyes, 

Sits careless over all, unseeing, mute, 
Blowing a madding pipe with hairy throat. 

And while the most so miserably fare 

But few are left to care 
That maids green wreaths and bright-red berries 

bring 
And all the joyous youths antiphonally sing. 



24 CHRISTMAS MORNING. 



VII. 



But yet the form of beauty has a place 

Within us ; and a sweet persuasive tongue 

To stir our hearts as when the world was young. 
And there remains the human form and face 

Most marvelous ; this universal frame 

Alight with subtile flame, 
Wherein the pulsing stars and planets roll 

Through the broad days and close mysterious 
nights ; 
And all those thoughts ineffable that make 
A solemn glory wake 

Above the wrecks and winds and scattered lights 
Along the stormy headlands of the soul ; 

If we will leave the grating pipes and go 

Where lofty organs blow, 
As maids green wreaths and bright-red berries bring 
And all the joyous youths antiphonally sing. 



VIII. 



Therefore give thanks, as seemly, on this morn 
For those who raised the world whereon they 
trod, 



CHRIS TMA S MORNING. 2 5 

For Buddha and those elder priests of God, 
For every godlike man wherever born ; 

But most of all for this most human child, 

Who pure and undefiled 
Sustained the pains of birth and life and death 

Not otherwise than as a very man 
May do forever. Else of what avail 
For us who faint and fail 

Had been the thought that he this day began 
In Bethlehem to draw his feeble breath ? 

Therefore lift up your anthems and rejoice 

With well accorded voice, 
While maids green wreaths and bright-red berries 

bring 
And all the joyous youths antiphonally sing. 



OUTGROWN. 

There will be time or ever day is done ; 
Remain thou with me but an hour yet ; 
'T is scarcely morning for the peeping sun 
Just shows his forehead, still the dew is wet 
And on the slated roofs shines black as jet : — 
So shall we talk together ere I fall 
Back to the slough wherein, before we met, 
My knees were wont contentedly to crawl, 
And thou go upward whither giant voices call. 

" Gone up among the mountains ! " When they 

come. 
Thine old friends come to thy deserted place 
At evening, as their custom is ; when dumb 
The chamber lies as conscious of disgrace 
Without retention of thy keen bright face ; 
When they make question of the withered husk 
Where the green corn is ; I shall pause a space 
26 



OUTGROWN. 2"] 

To gain my voice, then so reply — while dusk 
Pervaded is with memories like subtile musk. 

Then they will close again the opened door ; 
And going down the narrow winding stair 
To the long street, depart and come no more. 
After the moment having ceased to care ; 
I shall throw wide the window to the air, 
The delicate caressing air of spring. 
And question of the dusk how thou dost fare, 
Gone on that lofty, lonely wandering — 
Night after night, so close old recollections cling. 

But I shall miss thee most as afternoon 
In summer-time goes down toward eventide, 
When silently there comes a creeping moon — 
As a wan ghost ere yet the man has died 
May seek his room, and, standing by his side, 
Behold the evil laying waste his frame ; 
Thy brows' insistance, not to be denied. 
Will put my insufificiency to shame 
With all the torpid earth and firmament aflame. 

Gone up among the mountains ; and I stay 
With the poor remnant in the city-street, 



28 OUTGROWN. 

Whose coarser needs and uses fill my day. 
But even thou hast told me : " It is sweet 
Of summer evenings, when the parching heat 
Is cooled a little by the falling dew, 
To watch about the square the maidens meet 
Beside the fountain while the youths go through, 
Pacing along the dreamy twilight two by two ; 

" Pleasant to watch the faces of the great, 
Whose names the world at last has learned to 

know — 
Poets and sculptors, rulers of the state, 
Lovers of sad-eyed wisdom — all who go 
Abroad at eve to wander to and fro ; 
Pleasant to watch the current move along, 
Glad for these active forms that live and grow, 
Till from the contact with the human throng 
There comes the uplift and the glad outbursting 

song." 

And are these graceful pleasures not enough 
To keep thee with us for a little while, 
From ways as yet inviolate and rough ? 
Has woman's face no power to beguile 
Thy feet from passage of the steep defile 



OUTGROWN. ig 

Whither the rocks arise like pointed cones? 
Knows ease no witchery of languid smile, 
That thou wilt leave her arms for broken stones 
In deserts whitening with lost adventurers' bones ? 



Thy youth is like a richly jewelled cup 
With ornaments embossed about the edge, 
Wherewith a guest-friend stooping gathers up 
Deep-colored wine, and, answering the pledge, 
Kisses the imaged satyrs in the sedge, 
The drowsy goddesses on cloudy heaps, 
The sirens singing on an ocean ledge, 
And his own features, as to lip each leaps. 
Reflected from the wine's warm, ruddy-hearted 
deeps. 

How could'st thou flourish in our narrow life. 
Leaving the thoughts that with an eagle's wing 
Beat the clear air to join a petty strife 
Of sparrows ? Or could'st thou, whose accents 

ring 
With giant echoes, teach thy tongue to sing 
A little song of kisses to a lute. 
To please the idle mistress of a king ; 



30 OUTGROWN. 

Or be content to stay unstirred and mute, 
Existing like a patient, burden-bearing brute ? 

Hast thou considered all the ways of it. 
When thou shalt have departed from the crowd, 
And those companions who are wont to sit 
Beside thee, when the forests, strong and proud 
Before the rushing whirlwinds shall be bowed, 
Where there shall come upon the startled soul, 
Out of the wild horizon banked with cloud, 
Some fiercely colored star that does not roll 
Round the established centre of the stedfast pole ? 

All will delight at first : — the shades that creep 

Before the sunrise and its quick-paced awe, 

The dim, delicious lapsing into sleep 

When from each sense its images withdraw. 

The dripping of the water in a thaw. 

And on thy brow the wind's mouth smooth and 

warm 
Caressing thee in many a little flaw. 
Will manifest a beauty and a form 
As rarely breasted as a Northern winter's storm. 

And yet I know that when along the West 
Low-lying clouds be driven up in spume. 



OUTGROWN. 31 

Across the drowning mountains' rounded breast ; 
And all the depths of heaven with the gloom 
Be strictly hid, and there be scarcely room 
To breathe in for its pressure lying stark 
Upon thee like the cover of a tomb, 
Nor sun, nor moon, nor comet yields a spark, 
Thou wilt be stumbling on the mountains in the dark. 

I should go upward with thee to what good ? 
While thou hast need of one whose heart is stout 
Mine shudders on the border of a wood 
At nightfall while the fireflies reel about — 
Being perplexed and overwhelmed with doubt 
Before the forest that I have to tread 
In darkness with the light of youth gone out — 
About my feet the graves of those long dead, 
And in mine ears the weary words the Cynic said : 

" The silence is eternal, though ye hark, 
What will it profit when there is no sound 
A-ripple on the everlasting dark 
Or mind fermenting in the wild profound ? 
Have ye moles' eyes to search the heaven's 

mound? 
Then cease your questionings and take your ease ; 



32 OUTGROWN. 

Live while with dignity your heads are crowned, 
And at the last go forth because ye please, 
Not like the cravens with short cries and trembling 
knees." 

I see the sad remainder of my days — 
Disordered like a mourning woman's hair 
Flung round her in a lustreless dim haze, 
While she bewails the children that she bare 
To death, and finding that the past more fair 
Than the sad present will permit no rest. 
Teaches her trembling fingers till they dare 
Draw dagger from her girdle to her breast 
And press it where her children have been fondly 
pressed ; 

When sound of winds arising in the night 
Out of their caves between the dark and dawn 
Deep hidden and the strangely scattered light 
Of clouded stars and low on slumber's lawn 
Flowering faces suddenly withdrawn — 
But no voice making answer in a hymn. 
As was thy custom, shall announce thee gone 
To seek where on the world's far outer rim 
Sits mystery with eyes unfathomably dim. 



MOON-KISSED. 



Wilt thou consider one who goes about 

In heaviness of heart, 
Whose soul is like a fire burning out 
It does so crouch and start, 

Whose blood infected with an unknown taint 
Sends poison through the body's every part 
And has no color left wherewith to paint 
The flesh grown lean and faint ? 

Whereas of old beneath a smiling sun 

He was content to lie. 
Joyfully looking at the cloud-ships run 
Across the tender sky — 

Deeper than any tides that ever flowed 
In fond attendance on the moon's round eye — 
While singing of the sun's ascending road 
Around the stars' abode. 
33 



34 MOON-KISSED. 

So it was well with him until one night 

He walked the open leas 
Between a hill and forest. On the right 
Far down among the trees, 

The clouded August moon was like a pearl 
Taken by divers from the Southern seas 
To grace the blue-veined bosom of a girl 
And set her thoughts awhirl. 

A.11 afternoon the languid winds had died 

Along the burning ground, 
Until the midnight laid her cool bare side 
Against the verdure browned 

And scorched with heat. Then resting by a 
heap 
Of wilted rose-leaves on a little mound 
He felt the earth's reviving pulses leap 
And straight way fell asleep. 

Then crept the moon above the dubious wood 

Like some wild startled thing 
Escaping from a net. Barefaced she stood. 

Trailing a broken wing 

Of sultry clouds — an angel thrust from bliss ; 

Then bent her lips embittered with the sting 



MOON-KISSED. 3 5 

Of wasted times and powers used amiss 
Upon him in a kiss. 

All night he dreamed of stagnant land-locked seas 

Between infertile coasts, 
Haunted by dim lamenting memories 
And thickly thronging ghosts 

Of great emotions treacherously slain, 
And vain regrets for alienated hosts 
Of hope with voices falling like a strain 
Of music on the wane. 



II. 



While openly the sun in heaven weaves 

A charm to make men blind, 
Far in a wood whose sickly twilight leaves 
The hours undefined, 

A dim mysterious water shuns the noon — 
Like shrinking thoughts along a troubled mind- 
But when the pulses of the daylight swoon, 
It cherishes the moon. 

And in the seasons when her dwindled face 
Forlornly disappears ; 



36 MOON-KISSED. 

Some star, whose light has bored a hole in space 
By laboring for years, 

Looks through and at the bottom sees its flake 
Of pure white fire, as the current veers 

In a long flaw, so scattered as to make 

The spirals of a snake. 

The rainy Southwest wind with dripping hair 

And lashes often blurs 
Confusedly the beautiful bright air, 
And with its breathing stirs 

The drooping water-weeds of mouldy green 
Beside the pool and whispers to the firs 

Of men gone mad who o'er such waters lean 
And never more are seen. 

To walk where herbs with poisoned juices drip 

In that malignant fen, 
He has retired from the fellowship 
Of lofty-hearted men, 

Whose eyes burned clear by passion — like a 
star 
That out of clouds and storm has come again 
Doubly to bless the watchers from afar — 
Are clear as angels' are. 



MOON-KISSED. 37 

And there he wanders, all the summer's wealth 

Of flower, fruit, and bud 
Could not restore him to his former health 
Or cleanse his tainted blood ; 

He gives no heed though winter-time draws 
near, 
Autumnal winds go forth upon the flood. 
And in their stations in the turning year 
October's stars appear. 

O Spirit of the bell-mouthed winter-wind 

That rises from the place 
Of sunset with the many colors thinned 
Along its clear sharp face 

To one fine amber— thou, whose ears have 
heard 
Somewhere about the world a whispered trace 
Of old forgotten knowledge, speak one word 
Of life, that he be stirred. 



THE QUEEN. 

The Courtier had conspired with the King 
Against the safety of the youthful Queen, 
Regardless that a certain tender thing 
Had been betwixt them while her soul was clean 
Of courts and kings, or ever she had seen 
The husband she had been compelled to wed 
In the sweet season when her life was green ; 
But now because his love for her was dead, 
He listened to the words his shameless monarch 
said. 

That wizened King, whose face was like a scroll 
Of yellow parchment whereupon the earth 
Writing from year to year had set its whole 
Of worldly wisdom — never from his birth 
Upon those rigid lips had kindly mirth 
Been seen to settle, nor a summer-day 
Lighten those brows — now thinking that her 
worth 

38 



THE QUEEN. 39 

Was withered and her power in decay, 
Sought some sufficient cause for putting her away. 

Then came the Courtier with the sweet old love, 
And offered to betray by means of it 
The girl whose voice had been the voice of dove 
For tenderness to him, whose eyes had lit 
His heart aforetime — that he might but sit 
A little higher in the council-hall ; 
And so the King and he prepared a pit 
Whereinto her unwary feet might fall, 
For she had none on whom she could for succor 
call. 



Then spoke the King: "What of that sombre 

Lord 
Whose face is made a byword, he who came 
Out of the North with her and keepeth ward 
Over her health, whose face is like a flame 
Against us — if the Queen be put to shame ? " 
The Courtier answered : " Safe beneath thine eye 
Conduct him with the lords whose loyal aim 
Is ours to the chamber where ye lie. 
That if he speak in her defense, he surely die." 



40 THE QUEEN. 

Prepared the Courtier led her to the room, 
It was late afternoon in early spring ; 
And hidden by the curtains' heavy gloom 
Her husband and his lords lay listening 
For any careless word her love might fling 
Out of her lips that witnesses should know 
Her evilness to justify the King, 
And through the quiet from the court below 
Was heard a lover singing in the golden glow : — 

"There is no hope in singing 

For song is always sad ; 
There is no health in clinging 

To that which maketh mad." 

The Courtier speaking overwhelmed the song : — 
" Hast thou a memory for what is done ; 
Or have the carping crowds that thickly throng 
Thy presence from the morn to midnight won 
Thy kindness from the days of wind and sun 
And pleasant hours in thy fatherland, 
Where now the first frail flowers have begun 
To blossom, where the heaven is as bland 
As when we walked the open meadows hand in 
hand ? 



THE QUEEN. 4 1 

" Has this sweet time no power to recall 
The season and the place where we have met 
So often, where the trees stood straight and tall 
To guard thee, where the little leaves were wet 
After a shower as a faint regret 
Will linger on the lashes in a dew 
After a weeping, where the violet 
Was like a jewel in the moss that grew 
As soft as velvet on the ways that spring made new ? " 

Behind the hangings he who followed her. 
Starting to break concealment, was held fast 
By those about him. Hearing not the stir, 
She made a sign for silence as at last 
The Courtier's calculated words had passed 
Her patience ; but his voice, insistent, keen. 
Still hurt her hearing, so she sadly cast 
Her lashes down and let her forehead lean 
Against her hand to give her tearful eyes a screen. 

" 'T is said that when an hour of old joy 
Returns according to the circling year 
Amid the present's petulant annoy, 
Repentance for the past, the stealthy fear 
Of the dim future's woe, a little cheer 



42 THE QUEEN. 

Returns, although the hour be unknown — 
Yea, so with those who have a woman's tear 
And feeling ; but thou standest quite alone, 
A thing of unremembering and senseless stone. 

" It is so sad that one who sitteth by, 
Seeing another's tender love for him 
Sicken like some plague-stricken thing and die, 
Will — even when the fires have grown dim 
In the soft eyes that such a death makes grim 
With an unhealthy hatred — cast about 
To strengthen unbelief and falsely trim 
Older opinions to the newer doubt, 
Denying that the love is gone completely out. 

" So I have doubted, thinking thou wast firm 
Though women so inconstant are of mind 
Their loves continue but a little term ; 
And though I searched the world and might not 

find 
Another faithful, yet I thought to bind 
Thy heart to mine. 1 know thee better now — 
The little threads of loosened hair that wind 
Disorderly about thy lifted brow 
Are not as light and wanton of caress as thou." 



THE QUEEN. ■ 43 

Her face was like a summer afternoon 
Where heavily a sultry storm-cloud flies 
With lurid lights and shadows ; and as soon 
The voice of winds amid the leafage dies, 
Affrighted that the angry lightnings rise 
Along its frowning front and overhang 
The forest ; so the menace of her eyes 
Put him to silence. But a lute low rang, 
For in the outer court the mournful lover sang : — 

" There is no use in living 

A life that needs must die ; 
There is no joy in giving 

The gifts she putteth by." 

But suddenly the Queen began to speak 
Like one who whispers to herself at night 
What passed by day, then starts and lays her cheek 
In a new cooler place, or turns the light 
A little lower, nor discerns aright 
What she is doing or what words she saith 
For past and present mingle in her sight 
Confusedly ; and so with deep-drawn breath 
The Queen began to speak of him who sought her 
death : — 



44 THE QUEEN. 

" I am ashamed ; yea, heartily ashamed 
That such as he hath sinuously got 
My only love away. O eyes enflamed 
By mourning under eyelids dry and hot 
With the restraint of tears, ye sadly blot 
The beauty of the world these latter days, 
Where is your lustre now — 'your tangled knot 
Of starlight ' or ' your stolen milky ways ' ? 
Alas ! I understood so ill his courtly praise. 

" He saith I have no feeling. He is wrong 
For I have felt great meanings cross the spring 
At nightfall where the brooding hills prolong 
The purple dusk with overspreading wing 
Of shadow when the lonely places ring 
With the strange treble voices that arise 
Out of the marshes' mist and wildly sing 
Of baffled struggling crowds and broken cries 
And the great stedfast underhope that never dies. 

" Then I have felt his love about my heart, 

Making it mystically fair and sweet 

As it were consecrate and set apart. 

On the high hills the winter's cold white feet 



THE QUEEN. 45 

Or the brown palms of summer moist with heat 
Took on a perfect beauty, for love's soul 
Had made its dwelling with the incomplete — 
So the rich wine above an earthen bowl 
Scatters its prisoned sunlight in an aureole. 

" It took but little time for gloom to come 
After the first awaking of distrust, 
As at the touch of Fall the birds are dumb 
Or on a cold premonitory gust 
Go winging southward ; like the dull red rust 
Dimming a sword, discolored are the trees ; 
The ground is covered with a frosted crust, 
The lively streams go haltingly and freeze, 
While brutal winds are loosed upon the bare salt 
seas ; 

" So my delight left singing and was still ; 

Then turned away, departing down the wind 

Dismayed at his unkindness, at the chill 

Of his changed temper ; so my life was thinned 

Of gracious fruit because his season sinned 

Against the promise of the opening bud ; 

So stiffened up — although my ears are dinned 



46 THE QUEEN. 

With the free rolling of the human flood 
And climbing tide of passion — is my straitened 
blood. 

"Therefore 1 know how stern is winter's strength 

Descending from the bitter North to go 

About the land through all its breadth and 

length ; 
By day the sick, enfeebled sun leans low 
Across a waste horizon bleak with snow, 
Which stretches onward, taciturn and white, 
To the great arctic ocean chafing slow 
Against its sides beneath a scanty light ; 
And gaunt Orion occupies the iron night. 

" Through the high walks of heaven star with 

star 
In music moves though man has lost the sense 
Of spiritual hearing, though there are 
Some evil planets that have fallen thence 
To err forever where the night is dense 
With lower fogs corruptible, and numb 
With the black frost of sunless depths, intense 
Beyond imagining, where deaf and dumb 
In everlasting banishment they go and come." 



THE QUEEN. 47 

She paused a moment, " Yet I will not think, 
Because my star is fallen and must hang 
For its great sin hereafter on the brink 
Of inharmonious chaos whence it sprang, 
That all are evil." Thin and fretful rang 
The high-strung lute from where the lover paced 
The unfrequented court and sadly sang 
While the last colors of the sunset traced 
Intricate patterns on the twilight's clouded waste : — 

" No break will cross her laughter 

When I am carried by ; 
Nor will she ask thereafter 

The reason that I die." 

He ceased. Between the water and the wood 
The spirits of the night began to rise 
And walk the world ; the misty mountains stood 
Shouldering with the clouds ; the stars' sharp eyes 
Peered cautiously about like subtle spies 
Watching an enemy ; the winds awoke 
And called to one another through the skies, 
With clear shrill voices ; then the Courtiers broke 
From their concealment, and the King's Adviser 
spoke : 



48 TI^E QUEEN. 

"We have been much concerned, your Majesty, 
Because this woman, whom you took to wife, 
Has seemed to us for years the thing you see. 
But who would be so rash as stir up strife 
On a mere thought, or sacrifice a life 
For a report ; yet if he see one He 
Lurkingly fingering a naked knife 
Beside the roadway till the King pass by, 
Would not accuse him ? Therefore let this woman 
die." 

The King made answer as had been arranged : — 
" Since I am very helpless, being old. 
The faces of the world toward me have changed. 
And their lips flatter, while their hearts are cold 
With calculation. Who can hardly hold 
The sceptre, can he penetrate the breast 
And know the secret hidden in its fold ? 
I am so weak and foolish, and oppressed 
With leaden years, my Lords ; advise me for the 
best." 

Then spoke the Councillor who spoke before : 
" Nay, let your Highness have no heart-sick 
doubt ; 



THE QUEEN. 49 

We keep the old allegiance that we swore 
To cherish till our moisture be sucked out 
By parching death's extremity of drought, 
And we lie arid like a sun-burned land : 
But as for these two, foremost in the rout 
And rabble of disgrace and shame, command 
That they be given over to the hangman's hand." 

There was a sudden momentary calm. 
For the long dusk had deepened till the dark 
Fell like the touch of aromatic balm 
Oozing reluctant from a tree's bruised bark 
Over old gashes. Then a spiteful spark 
Worried the silver sconces into light, 
Staring and unabashed, where all might mark, 
The Courtier's countenance grown ridged and 
white. 
Like a sick fear that rises in the coward night. 

And with his voice a-tremble like a drop 
Of water that is settling toward its fall, 
With writhing lips that tried in vain to stop 
Their fearful tremors, he began to call 
Upon the Councillors : *' What mean ye all ? 
Are ye in earnest haply ? Will ye cheat 



50 THE QUEEN. 

My service of preferment ? Shall I crawl 
Deathward and leave existence incomplete ? " 
He groaned and made as though to grovel at their 
feet. 



The Northern Lord had stood like one that 

dreams 
Of calm, and w^aking finds that ills increase, 
Quiet but for the working of the seams 
And wrinkles in the face that will not cease 
Twitching ; but now his tongue was loosened : 

" Peace, 
Thou fool ! The end is thy contrivance. Keep 
To thy concerns ; the things of life release 
To such as shall have space to laugh and weep 
When thou art lying heavy with impassive sleep. 

' For thou hast reached the limit of the world — 
The ever-shifting line of crumbling capes 
And wrinkled skies and shrivelled waters hurled 
And huddled into one ; where fleshless shapes. 
Paddling the thick and clotted dark that drapes 
The imminent end, are keen to suck thy blood 
And knead thy body — like the skins of grapes 



THE QUEEN. 5 1 

Thrown from the vat and trodden with the 
mud 
Into the formless substance of the restless flood. 

" When thou art summoned by another name ; 
And taking up the body long disused, 
Thou goest with a sudden sense of shame 
Because the neck of it is thwart and bruised, 
And standest in the strange new morn confused; 
What wilt thou answer to be reconciled 
To God whose patience thou hast so abused. 
To her whom thou hast wilfully beguiled 
When she was little other than a helpless child ? 

" Life touches you but lightly in the South 
And ye are glad at trifles ; for the earth 
Laughs with you, and the sunlight, while the 

mouth 
Of ocean ripples with indulgent mirth, 
But in the North we are austere from birth ; 
The unattainable high heaven mocks 
At our endeavor, and the little worth 
Of human effort frets us till life locks 
Our passions into silences like ice-ribbed rocks. 



52 THE QUEEN. 

" Because her face was like a perfect plant 
Set in a Northern garden often tossed 
And rumpled by the winds, where buds are scant 
Of fruit or flower, and their life is lost 
In one short night by reason of the frost ; 
Where for the most part of the year the streams 
Are thick with icicles and trees are mossed 
But little from the sun so thin its beams — 
She grew to be the single flower of my dreams. 

" The dream is gone now. On the hill the wind 
Sucks like a whirlpool ; where the moon should 

bloom 
A rose in heaven — see, the light is thinned 
To a dull yellow, for the fogs consume 
The edges of the evening ; in the room 
Of the star-flowers are the withered clouds, 
The exhalation and suspended fume 
Out of the tempest's nostrils ; snow enshrouds 
The hillside, and the flakes are blown about in 

crowds. 

" The sweet low place wherein she sat half-hid 
Behind her father's chair, and whence she rose 
To give his guests a welcome — as she did 



THE QUEEJ\r. ^3 

Before thy fatal coming — never knows 
The pressure of her shoulder in repose 
Against its carving now ; across the floor 
Her feet advance no longer at the close 
Of evening, and the threshold of the door 
That she has crossed so often feels her step no 
more. 

" These are the things that thou must answer for. 
In thy blind riding to the North at first 
Out of the storm arose no forms of war 
Or sad self-conscious struggle that outburst 
To warn thee off ? Why wentest thou, accursed 
Like him by whom offenses come, astray 
To us with all the world to choose from — worst 
Of all bad paths ? Hadst thou been cast away 
It had been better for thee in the final day. 

" While lisping to her ears some tender thing, 
Thou plottedest in that crooked mind of thine 
How thou mightst make a marriage for thy King 
To thy advantage, should his thought incline 
To widen out his kingdom and combine 
Two parted interests. Since there were none 
To stand between the girl and thy design, 



54 THE QUEEN. 

After her father and the King were won, 
Ye wrought upon her weakness till the sin was done. 

" While yet her father's power in the North, 
Because of which the marriage had been made. 
Waxed like a tree and thrust its branches forth 
Into the South as though to overshade 
And keep it from the sun, respect was paid 
To the Queen's walk and not too strict regard. 
This altered as his green began to fade 
In the sear Autumn of his age, when marred 
With frost the leafage of his tree turned dry and 
hard. 

"After he died I looked for some such end ; 
And nightly when the sun enfeebled sank 
To westward, when the trees began to bend 
Under the rising of the wind, and dank 
The fog was on the stagnant river-bank. 
And light departed from the mountain-top ; 
I questioned of the swiftly marching rank 
And vanward of our days when dark would drop 
And all the going forward of the journey stop. 

" Queen once and Queen forever, let me stoop 
Over thy hand and seal my faith thereon, 



THE QUEEN, 55 

Inalterable though the heavens droop 
And wither from their places, though the sun 
Reels in his chambers and our day is done 
About its noontide. Leave thy fingers so 
In my hand's hollow ; let the warm blood run 
With mine a little longer, for I know 
That when I loose thy hand, I surely let life go. 

" Listen ! The multitudinous quick feet 
Of those that shall come after in our stead 
With hollow sound tumultuously beat, 
Crowding behind us with persistent tread. 
Let us go, therefore, whither we are led. 
And leaning close as friends lean breast to breast 
Sit and hold quiet converse with the dead 
In the still pastures of the ample West, 
Where all the tired stars and winds lie down to rest." 



A certain Page — who had been standing by 
And on the outskirts of the group unseen 
Or else unheeded, when the talk was high. 
Listened intently, letting his ear lean 
Toward each who spoke but always on the 
Queen 



56 THE QUEEN. 

Fixing his eyes as though he wished to wear 
Her face in memory — with dagger keen 
Though needle-slender such as pages bear 
Assailed the Courtier, who fell clutching at the air, 

" And this is lest he hang not," said the Page. 
Whereat a silence thicker than all speech 
Choked up the room while ashen-pallid rage 
Flecked white the Councillors' thin lips and each 
Stared at his neighbor's face as on a beach 
Blankly the few survivors of a wreck, 
For they would yet have put him out of reach, 
Being unwilling gallows-birds should peck 
A Courtier's body dangling by its broken neck. 

" Take them away whom she hath so bewitched 
With her milk face," the King said. " Lest she feel 
Lonely in death," his nervous fingers twitched 
Eager to play the torturer and reel 
Her body into thread, "before death seal 
Her eyes forever, in the market-place 
Let the pale boy be broken on the wheel, 
That she may see." — All passed and left no trace 
Of whirlwind save the body lying on its face. 



THE QUEEN. 57 

Then came two men and bore the Courtier out ; 
And having laid the sorely wounded man 
Upon his bed, they straightway turned about 
And left him there — while many hours ran, 
Unconscious. But at midnight he began 
To ask strange questions, erring in his mind. 
And mumbled to the King of this last plan 
For which he perished — as he groped to find 
Some stay amid the darkness for his eyes were 
blind. 

And afterwards a light uneasy sleep 
And dreams came over him, wherein he spoke 
Fragments of former talk and seemed to keep 
Old trysts with her whom he betrayed and stroke 
Her hair and call her love-names till he woke 
Choking with death and pitifully cried 
To her for pardon. So ere morning broke, 
In that dark hour when the daily tide 
Of human life is at its lowest ebb, he died. 

The mystical veiled light that runs before, 
Prophetic of the quickly coming dawn, 
Was pulsing high in heaven when they bore 
The three to death. Her look was like a lawn 



58 THE QUEEN. 

Impassive under snow ; but thwart and drawn 
Like a blurred shadow cast by candle-light, 
The face that followed, for the Page had gone 
To execution many times that night. 
And being young his cheek was womanish and 
white. 

And seeing that he trembled overmuch 
The Northern Lord had tried to steady him 
Till the Queen came and healed him with a 

touch ; 
Then he went bravely from the scaffold's rim 
To the gaunt wheel ; and mangled chord and 

limb 
Hung limp and lax. The crowd's hoarse voices 

crooned 
Like witches in her ears. " Their faces swim 
Bewilderingly," she murmured. Half she 

swooned 
While all the dawning East was one long crimson 

wound. 

Because she staggered, being very weak, 
He guarded her against the headsman's care, 
And gently from her sunken bloodless cheek 



THE QUEEN. 59 

And from her neck's white nape, to leave it bare 
As the need was, he put her rumpled hair. 
Kneeling she caught his hand. '' Be not afraid," 
He said, " I follow." While a whispered prayer 
Hallowed her lips, a sudden sign he made 
To strike her quickly ; so she perished as she 
prayed. 

Calmly he knelt and gave the headsmen charge 
That they should wait the spreading of his 

hands 
Before the axe bit through and set at large 
The body's occupant. Across the lands 
Of life the sunlight lay in broad, bright bands ; 
Within, forgotten faces newly found 
Gibbered like corpses floating to the sands 
Of a waste sea wherein of old they drowned : — 
Then rolled his severed head upon the senseless 

ground. 



This was the way of it — no doubt forgot — 
For I have written, stating nought amiss 
Or hastily, the truth that alters not. 
So I bear witness. Later breaths shall hiss 



6o THE QUE EM. 

Shrilly against the guilty, though of this 
The poet made a song of sickly sighs 
And lawless loves to please the lips that kiss 
Lightly about the court — his words are lies : 
I saw the calm bright brow above her steady eyes. 



A DEAD SOUL. 

What costly sacrifice, what fair parade 

Of gifts, what scent of incense shall we bring 
To lift our hearts since we no longer sing 

Those gracious songs of daily life we made 
When we were young together, oh, my friend ? 

For we are troubled that our tongues are still, 
That we no longer bend 

Our footsteps toward our lofty solemn hill. 

Do you remember where we used to walk ? 

There was a little quiet water lay 

Amid the circling grass beside the way 
Whither we went of afternoons to talk 

And watch some narrow corner of the sky 
Brokenly mirrored by the ripples' flow 

As they went gliding by — 
Until the night fell and we rose to go. 
6i 



62 A DEAD SOUL. 

What matter that we had no warm-hued wine, 
Or golden jewels, while the breaking morn 
Was ruddy, and the sunlight on the corn 

Lay yellow till day's gradual decline, 
Ushering in the pensive eventide. 

Gave us new beauties that we might adore 
When planets side by side 

In stately dance went down the heaven's floor ? 

And so for years we lived there satisfied, 
Till once as it grew Fall and in the plain 
Below us had been harvested the grain 

And on the wooded ways the plants had died ; 
Your purpose faded from your heart ; you said, 

" Alas ! enough of grandeur, I am sad ; 
Come, join the garlanded 

Whose careless lives are prosperous and glad." 

Like one who goes to see the setting sun ; 
And having watched it slowly sink, then fall 
Rapidly out of sight behind the wall 

Of the horizon — though the day is done — 
Still strains his eyes upon the empty place 

With dim expectancy of some strange thing ; 



A bEAD SOUL. 63 

1 looked upon your face, 
Then fell to idly, sadly wondering ; — 

You with a soul like that of some sweet saint 
Whose passion is the servant of his thought — 
What strange outrageous battle had been fought 

Within your depths before your strength was faint 
Enough to yield the conflict with a moan ? 

Your voice broke on the solitude again, 
"We are too much alone ; 

Come, let us go among our fellow-men." 

So we arose from where we sat and went 

Down from the hilltop and the slopes were gray 

Already in the early fading day ; 
But you strode cheerfully as quite content 

With the new venture ; I was dumb with doubt 
Of what might hap. Then died the sunset's blush, 

The evening star came out, 
And we went on into the deepening hush. 

The road we travelled seemed unreal to me ; 

There came a strange wan moon and lagged be- 
hind. 
Casting fantastic shapes ; I could not find 



64 A DEAD SOUL. 

A star I knew in all the starry sea. 

So the night passed ; and when the morning 
came 
Benignantly above the distant crest 

Of our old hill, the flame 
Lapped with its tongues a city in the West ; 

Builded of marble wonderfully fair, 

Sculptured with faces of strange men and beasts — 

The heathen gods that sat at frozen feasts 
Forever raising chiselled cups in air 

But never drinking ; heroes stood arow 
Beneath the gods, then images of kings, 

And farther yet below 
The living in the streets did paltry things. 

For all the people kept a holiday 

In that white city — if such day can be 

Plucked from continual festivity — 
And with a great procession made display ; 

First passed their priests with long white beard 
and hair ; 
Their venerable men ; then those who played 

On pipes and those who bare 
The beautiful, the gods their hands had made : 



A DEAD SOUL. 65 

And following were rose-flushed cheeks of girls 
Unto whose tender shoulders lightly clung 
Their floating robes, upon whose bosoms hung 

The waving masses of their loosened curls ; 

While close behind them — beautiful and young 

Came white-robed manhood, strong and lithe of 
limb. 
Of ready-witted tongue 

Breaking at times into a joyful hymn. 

The multitude fell in and we were led 
Into a temple, where, as in a dream, 
We watched them set before us yellow cream 

And golden butter, ruddy wine, white bread 

And mellow fruits, whereon we feasted, cheered 

By nourishment, and when the day was grown 
To eve and night appeared 

They brought a harp of clear melodious tone, 

Whereto each sang in turn a hollow song ; 
But when it came to me, I put it by. 
Having no words wherewith to satisfy 

The mood of this fair, shallow-hearted throng ; 
And you, who lusted for its light applause. 

Stretched out your hand unheeded, for the feast 



66 A Dead soul. 

Was finished and a pause 
Was on the singing and the mirth had ceased. 

It was in that dark hour when the cocks 
Impatient of the dawn begin to crow, 
That all the multitude swayed to and fro 

By wrath arose and cried : " This stranger mocks 
Our sacred festival ; gray-faced and grim 

He views our mirth ; he scorns our gods no doubt — 
Away, away with him ! " 

And they laid hands on me and thrust me out. 

Day after day beside the city-gate. 

Wrapped in a sad-hued cloak, low in the dust 

I sit and croon our songs, for still I trust 
In your nobility. And here I wait 

Against your coming — you will come, I know, 
To take my hand when your delusion rolls 

Away, and we shall go 
Together from the city of dead souls. 



THE DILETTANTE ON SHADOWS. 

Now I will put aside my flute, and talk 

Since you desire it. 
Will it disturb you, if 1 rise and walk 

Backward and forward thus — or shall I sit ? 
I 'm used to err. My plyaing is not fit 
For your attention — destitute of grace, 
A scrawny mullen-stalk 
Is always out of place. 

Yes, they are mine — those papers that exhume 

The long forgotten day ; 
And I am he who carved upon the tomb 

The angel with the eyes that bless — you say ; 
And mine those poems — you will have it — sway 
Men's souls ; the lofty statue in the square 
Which fouling damp and gloom 
At night leave longest bare. 
67 



68 THE DILETTAI^TE ON' SHADOWS. 

" How did you make performance of your task 

So eminently good, 
Since man does only one thing well ? " you ask. 
My works are totally misunderstood, 
Are insufficient, vain as womanhood 
Without maternity ; they deal in lies 
And leave the twisted mask 

On Life's fair brow and eyes. 

Though of my arrows some have glanced aside 

Through feebleness, some missed 
The target utterly, some flying wide 

Injured my fellows who would fain assist, 
I '11 tell you how they happened to exist 
At all and to be hurtled from the bow — 
But you belike will chide 

To hear what you would know ; 

For talk of these inadequate things done 
At such times as I had 

A hope that from the changing might be won 
A stable rest whereof we should be glad, 
May lead me into words uncouth and sad, 
Since it is very dismal in the mind — 



THE DILETTANTE ON SHADOWS. 69 

You ask me to go on ? 

I thank you, you are kind. 

In boyhood, when the welcome dark had shut 

About the earth's broad face. 
Leaving the growing fancies free to strut, 

An hour as pleased them best at their own pace 
Hither and thither in their narrow place ; 
They often wondered, " In another's eyes 
What figure does he cut, 

He from whose brain we rise ? " 

Then I admired man far more than now — 

Through ignorance ? Perchance — 
His careful and deliberating brow 

To check the eager eyes' impatient glance 
That points the face as steel will point a lance. 
The legs' straight columns bearing up the trunk 
That hidden powers endow 
With fires deeply sunk. 

So reverencing these I wished to be 

To such an one as hit 
My fancy even as he was to me. . 

And later when the flaring lamps were lit, 



70 THE DILETTANTE ON SHADOWS. 

I walked about to watch my shadow flit 
Along the halls and flutter like your fan — 
Excitedly to see 

If I were yet a man. 

These are the shadows of the growing boy, 

Who vaguely pondering 
Sees in the future powers to enjoy 
Activity of life — the only thing 
Without a question worth accomplishing, 

And never doubts the scope the years will give 
Fittingly to employ 

His strength and duly live. 

But when I grew to manhood, having found 

In that transparent dawn 
That chances for my deeds did not abound 
And all the poignancy of life was gone, 
As in the noon the dew deserts a lawn ; 
Straightway upon the intellect I bent 
My search for some sure ground 
Whereon to be content, 

" Seeing that thought is powerful," I said, 
" And there is little time 



THE DILETTANTE ON SHADOWS. 7 1 

Before I shall be put among the dead, 
I will employ the powers of my prime 
To lift another whither I shall climb." 
So came my volumes of philosophy — 
Not quite as widely read • 
As they deserve to be. 

Then I reflected : " Is this human like, 

About men as they are ? 
O ignorant as some restricted tike 

Who by a passionless, transcendent star 
He noticed in the firmament afar 

Describes the sputter of a match's tip 
Which he is wont to strike 
To light his tallow dip." 

Then digging for the skeletons of men 

I sought an elder age, 
And having clad it in its rags again. 
Set it to mime upon the mimic stage 
That rises dimly from a printed page ; 

And there the shadows of a time o'erthrown, 
Distorted by my pen. 

Unheeded made their moan. 



72 THE DILETTANTE ON SHADOWS. 

But being even then dissatisfied, 

Because the human heart 
Was yet untouched in all that I had tried, 
And human passions for the greater part 
Were unregarded, I made trial of art. 
Testing the beautiful to find some gain 
In joy to set aside 

My disappointing pain. 

And I became a rhymer ; as my skill 

With exercise increased. 
The old enjoyments that were wont to fill 
My lonely hours gradually ceased 
To please ; no longer poets spread the feast 
Of chosen words. So lest my soul should 
starve, 
In the first creeping chill 

Of age I learned to carve. 

These are the flat projections of man's mind — 
The shadows of a life 

He would be glad to live but can not find. 
The vain expressions of an inward strife, 
Probing, forever probing with its knife 
To loose the secrets hidden at the core, 



THE DILETTANTE ON SHADOWS. 73 

To cut away the rind 

From seeds unveiled before. 

These are my immortality, it seems, 

Which strings along that shelf 
With all its volumes — phantasies and dreams, 
Muddling some facts — I never wrote for pelf, 
At least that justice have I done myself ; 

Two statues, things I scarcely tried, seem best — 
Yes, better than the reams 
Of poems and the rest. 

Undoubtedly because I cannot judge 

The merit of such work, 
I praise what might be done by any drudge, 
Well, let it pass ; yet will suspicion lurk 
Along the edges of a dream when murk 
Befouls my sight ; had I been given wings 
Nor been compelled to trudge, 
I had done wondrous things. 

Now I am grown so old I cannot feel ; 

But even on an earth 
Where disappointment biting at its heel 

Poisons endeavor from its very birth. 



74 THE DILETTANTE ON SHADOWS. 

Seems it not ill — this everlasting dearth 
Of satisfaction for the urgent needs — 
Or is it but a steel 

That rooteth out the weeds ? 

These divers things are shadows of one man 

And therefore cause surprise ; 
As if — to modify a prior plan — 

Some morning fifty brilliant suns should rise, 
He who had never watched the old with eyes 
Of awe, would be the one to marvel most 
Although the lone sun ran 
As strangely as the host. 

But having failed as every man must fail, 

I look abroad for hope, 
And on the world I see strange shapes as pale 
As those among which I am wont to grope 
Appear to others. — Suns arise and slope 
Obscurely until men of yesterday 
Grow pitifully frail 

With shadowy decay. 

And most of all these things I see around 
To my inspection seem 



THE DILETTANTE ON SHADOWS. 75 

To be without coherence — no one bound 
Unto the next ; as when a rhythmic stream 
Low-rippling mixes witli an idler's dream, 
He hears but lightly laughing girls rejoice, 
Unnoting in the sound 

The waves' incessant voice. 



Therefore like one who looks upon the things 

That I have done, with doubt 
That he who wrote the metaphysic, sings 
And he who sang, chisels the figures out 
Of marble — that one man can turn about 
Until his figure takes so many shapes ; 
And if conviction brings 

New wonder, stands and gapes : 

Or like a dog that while his lord for cold 

Goes walking to and fro 
Before a fire, wondering — though old 

In that man's service — what strange figures go 
Along the wall, too ignorant to know 

That shadow, barks till tired, then lies curled 
To sleep : — so I behold 

God's shadow on the world. 



76 THE DILETTANTE ON SHADOWS. 

While in the sunset's narrow golden rim 

The opal of the West 
Fills with great shadows, mystically dim 

And undefined through that opaque white breast 
On whose expanse the colors never rest 

But move and mingle like the forms of sleep : — 
I wait to cross its brim 

And therein wander deep. 



YOUTH DEAD. 

One who has loved the summer and has sung 
Its praise in sunny meadows, is not dumb 
When winter-time is come, 
But by the fire with his harp new strung 
Sits low and sings a retrospective song 
Of the dead gladness. Though his hands are 
numb 
With frequent draughts that throng 
The gusty hall, he joins to his sweet tongue 
Such well concented chords in sad complaint 
As make the smart of absence tolerably faint. 

So I beside the body of my dead. 

Weaving my sorrow into some sad hymn, 
Will mourn to-night, while dim 
The lights are burning at his feet and head, 
While the white cloth is mercifully drawn 
77 



yS YOUTH DEAD. 

Over the empty hand and stiffened limb ;- 
But when the star-eyed dawn 
Awakes and standing o'er me by the bed 
Points with her finger to the newer need, 
I will arise and follow wheresoe'er she lead. 



O Messengers between the soul and sense, 

Whose agile wings ascend the lightning's slope, 
While we in darkness grope 
And call thy truth a lie in truth's defence ; 

Whose feet are steady on the clouds to go 
Or penetrate the deeps, whose broad free 
scope 
Includes the high and low 
And knows them part of one, why went ye hence 
And left me comfortless when ye liad brought 
My well-beloved home — O Sons of lyric thought ? 

Dead ! and he went through such a weary way. 
He has gone deeper than the land of dreams 
With all its pleasant streams ; 
For as his spirit passed the other day 

Through fields of slumber to the brazen 
gate, 



YOUTH DEAD. 79 

Before whose dense impenetrable beams, 
The dying stand and wait, 
Since farther one who liveth can notstray — 
As he stood there amid death's motley crew, 
Lo, the accursed gate swung wide and let him 
through. 

When the swift Messengers, who came to bear 
The tidings to my startled ears, had flown 
And I remained alone 
In the fast-falling night, yet unaware 

How deep and irretrievable my loss. 
Thinking, since all the truth was not yet known. 
He had but gone across 
Sleep's verge and been delayed, I sought him 
there ; 
But having caught no glimpse of that dear face, 
Late the next morn I left the miserable place. 

Then I made search for him about the world : 
On distant uplands where he loved to roam 
Beneath the smiling dome 

Of heaven when the little clouds lie curled 
Along the broad horizon's verge to rest 



8o YOUTH DEAD. 

After their travels ; by the scattered foam 
Around the ocean's breast, 
The fringe wherewith the clothing shore is purled ; 
On barren heights, in dells where flowers grow, 
In silent places whither he was wont to go ; 

Then where he walked for joy of human speech — 
Either in public market-place and street, 
Or some secure retreat 
Out of the ken of prying eyes and reach 

Of jarring tongues and over-curious ears. 
Where he and his few friends rejoiced to meet 
With talk of what the years, 
The nimble-footed years would bring to each : 
But in the evening I returned forespent. 
Having inquired vainly for him as I went. 

After the rose-flush on the heaven's cheek 
Had crossed it following the sunken sun, 
When slowly one by one 
The stars came out above the last red streak ; 
I called to me the Messengers and asked, 
" How know ye that his pleasant life is done. 
Since all day long ye basked 



YOUTH DEAD. 61 

Where through the soil a spring's cool waters 
leak 
And sunbeams trickle down some leafy tree 
Far in the solitude ? " They answered, " Come and 
see." 

So I arose and let them go before 

Along the highway from the mountain's crown 
Slow-winding to the town, 
Till in a lonely street we reached a door, 

Through which they led me to a darkened 
room, 
Wherein the body lay. Then I went down 
Beside him in the gloom 
Upon my knees, and raised him from the floor 
And named him with the old familiar word 
We used in childhood ; but his features never 
stirred. 

I sang to him of portents, of wild stars 
And comets burning in the night's abyss, 
Of women's lips that kiss 

Their lovers, and the riding to the wars 
To victory ; or else the last mischance 
Of battle, and the arrows' sting and hiss, 



S2 YOUTH DEAD. 

The shadowy advance 
Of death upon the wounded when the jars 
Of conflict cease and dark conceals the field ; 
The bearing back the body on the broken shield. 

But yet he stirred not Then I sang of peace : — 
The time when lambs lie bleating in the fold, 
When winter's rigid cold 
Compels the overbearing wars to cease, 
When maidens all arow along the wall 
Clad in bright garments wrought with living 
gold 
Adorn the sombre hall, 
Like flowers, and the joys of life increase 
And move responsive to the quickened beat 
Of music and the rhythmic sound of dancing feet. 

When I perceived no color on his lips 
Nor any light of understanding rise 
Within his darkened eyes, 
And that his face was like a field when slips 
Out of the clouds the inexpressive snow 
Hour by hour till all verdure lies 
Inanimate below. 
And like thin icicles the finger-tips 



YOUTH DEAD. 83 

That I was holding ; then I knew that death 
Had snatched my unsuspecting youth's impulsive 
breath. 



I raised my eyes and recognized the place 
As that where I had seen him last alive, 
When one about to wive 
Had made a feast and bidden us. With face 
Of smiling holiday and heart as light 
As is becoming unto those who thrive, 
Through the enchanted night 
My youth had gone and bent his ear to trace 
Among the sounds along the forest-side 
A wedding-song for fitly honoring the bride. 

Where he had sung to please her what the brooks, 
The winds, the peepers and the rustling trees 
Sing all night long to please 
The tender mating birds in starlit nooks, 

Where she had listened, sitting with her 
kin. 
Her bended elbow resting on her knees 
And underneath her chin 
Her hollowed hand and let her loving looks 



§4 YOUTH DEAD. 

Flutter between her husband and the ground — 
There he lay dead, his forehead still with flowers 
crowned. 



But I had missed him first on my return, 
We came together but I went alone 
Beneath a sky wind-blown 
And bluish like exhausted veins that yearn 
For newer currents of refreshened blood ; 
In fields the fragrance of the hay new-mown 
Or roses just in bud. 
Or deeper yet the soft damp smell of fern 
Had not aroused me from a sullen doubt, 
A sense as of a great light suddenly gone out. 

The Messengers concealed him with my cloak 
And bore him forth. 'T was summer, and the 

dust, 
Burned brown as iron-rust, 
Fretted our throats and nostrils like a smoke. 
Now and again the sultry clouds were split 
By lightning or a meteor was thrust 
Across the waste and lit 
By its own motion. As we went none spoke 



YOUTH DEAD. 85 

Until the bearers raised a chant to cheer 
Their journey when the hill's laborious slopes drew 
near : 

" All men are born to sorrow. Lift along 
The burden for to-morrow We may weep, 
But now the road is steep 
Nor will much lamentation Make us strong ; 

Come, therefore, let us borrow Strength of 
mirth ; 
So with his approbation We shall keep 
His memory on earth 
Nor in our lowly station Do him wrong. 
Where now he dwells in honor with the hosts 
Of spirits in the country of unbodied ghosts. 

" There are the days and hours Yet unborn, 
And other seasons' flowers With their fruit, 
The future's music mute 
And hidden in the hollow Of its horn ; 

There dwell the mighty powers That have 
been. 
The kings that death makes follow In his suite, 
Alas ! no longer seen, 



86 YOUTH DEAD. 

Departed like a swallow Through the morn : 
Nor do the people of that country weep, 
But sit in pensive quiet as of dreamy sleep." 

And so the Messengers have brought him home, 
Arranged the candles, laid a linen cloth 
Like drowning ocean-froth 
Above him, placed a bit of honey-comb 
To draw away the insects of the night 
And bidden me farewell. A great gray moth. 
More tempted by the light 
Than by the ordered sweet, begins to roam 
About the sconces, hideous as death 
Or the corruption gendered by its sickly breath. 

And early in the morning, while the mist 

Still wreathes the marshes, some will dig a 

grave ; 
And when the dawn's red wave 
Runs up the sky and all the heights are kissed 
And rosy of a sudden, they will take 
The corpse away and with pure water lave 
Its frozen limbs and make 
All ready. Then the funeral will twist 



YOUTH DEAD. 8/ 

Snakelike along the upward-winding track 

And what the earth has given shall be taken back. 

No longer will he be interpreting 
To my intelligence the shadows cast 
From out the cloudy vast 
Of mysteries that all unordered ring 

My life about but get beyond my view 
Now that his ministry is overpast ; 
No longer will it do 
To lie contented in the sun and sing 
But for the song's sake. Yea, he needs must go 
That manhood may to higher understanding grow. 

For though my youth is quiet, now no growth 
Disturbs his languid hours, I must range 
Until the final change 
Obstructs with unimaginable sloth 

At least the further progress of the flesh ; 
But whether from the soul it will estrange 
The body, as they thresh 
Its wrappings from the grain, or whether both 
Are of a single nature and shall burn 
By the slow fire of decay — I am to learn. 



THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE 
DEVIL. 

I. SPRING-SONG. 

The World and the Flesh. 

The leaves arise along the Spring, 
Whose soul is like the soul of wine 
Or fire wonderfully fine ; 
Its winds sound like the fingered string 
Of some sweet instrument, whose ring 
Accompanies while women sing 
Of love the delicate design ; 
And singing gayly intertwine 

The flowers and their flowing hair. 

At noon and eve the birds find tongue, 
And haste to woo while they are young 
The mates to whom their songs are sung ; 
The blossom lays its bosom bare 



THE WORLD, FLESH AND DEVIL. 89 

To the caresses of the air, 

While lusty joy with bended hips 
Offers to youth her smiling lips. 

The World. 

As into flood thy passions break 
And pouring over boyhood's brim 
Put vigor into every limb, 
Arise and bid thy powers wake. 
Thereby live largely, glad to take 
Or pain or pleasure so they make 
Thy life no candle blurred and dim 
That gutters o'er its narrow rim 

Or drowns itself with hindered flow ; 
But rather be the rose's flame 
That glows unheeding praise or blame. 
Unskilled to question whence it came 
Or whither it at last shall go 
Or whether it exist or no ; — 

Now that thy petals are uncurled, 
Put forth a thorn to prick the world. 

The Flesh. 

As thou hast senses, so enjoy. 

Fret not because of some lost height, 



90 THE WORLD, FLESH AND DEVIL. 

But gratify thine appetite 
To save thy body from annoy ; 
Yet lest these grosser things destroy 
Thy keenness, fail not to employ 
The finer forms of rare delight — 
The poet's sound, the sculptor's sight — 
For thine enjoyment. Thou art fit 
As well as they to hear and see, 
Rounding thy life more perfectly 
Since thou art unrestrained and free 
While they are driven by a bit 
One way and may not swerve from it. 
So shall thy sympathies be wide 
Touching mankind on every side. 

II. WINTER-SONG. 

The Devil. 

The sun has lost his light and heat ; 
Above the heavy clouds his head 
Shows dimly. So when one is dead, 
Wrapt from the shoulders to the feet 
And tangled in his winding-sheet. 
They set him forth for men to greet 
Before the services are read 
And the last solemn words are said. 



THE WORLD, FLESH AND DEVIL. 9 1 

Then those few friends who stand about 
The body in the darkened place 
Where they have set that hollow case, 
From gazing on the vacant face 
Begin to feel a growing doubt 
And try to spell its meaning out : — 
Whatever way your footsteps tend 
Death lies in waiting at the end. 

Make heaviness ; yea, weep and wail ; 
Look not upon the moon or sun 
For weariness of deeds undone 
Since all a life's incentives fail 
When ruddy-hearted deeds grow pale 
And thoughts are shown of no avail. 
What profits thee this triumph won, 
That ecstasy conceived by none 

Save thee whose strength it helped to waste ? 
Each effort leaves thee weaker. Pull 
About thee thy soft wrap of wool, 
Yet higher, lest thine eyes be full 
Of pleasures that thou durst not taste 
To urge thy days to greater haste ; 

From this dark place where thou hast stood 
Take forth distrust of any good. 



THE ADVENTURER. 

I GO to-morrow morning, and the light 
Of that eventful day will dawn too soon ; 
Give me thy hand and let us walk to-night, 
For on the lonely mountain wakes the moon 
Beyond the city, while behind the dune 
The restless winds are stirring on the sea 
And the pent ocean struggles to be free. 

I have heard wonders of the outer world, 
Told by such seamen as returned to die 
Here in their birthplace, when the fire curled 
Around the logs and wintry was the sky 
In the long evenings, and the winds were high- 
Marvellous stories, but I shall not find 
A fairer city than I leave behind. 

It lies recumbent at the river's mouth, 
Between the mountain and the sandy shore, 
92 



THE ADVENTURER. 93 

Exposed a little to the placid South, 

Facing the level sunset and its store 

Of visionary joys. The waters pour 

Twice daily from the sea, and on the tide 
Strange wreck and drift of foreign vessels ride. 

Therefore the longings of the sea are strong 
Over my nature. While the city sleeps, 
I Jie and listen to the Sirens' song 
Calling across the quicksands to the deeps ; 
All day I watch the current as it creeps 

Under the sliding keels, and swirls and slips 
In furrows from the tall sea-going ships. 

I shall go down the harbor as the flood 
Begins to ebb and leave the marshes bare, 
Past hulking wrecks protruding from the mud, 
Gnawed and corroded by the sharp salt air ; 
Just at tide-turning, if the wind holds fair, 
The ship will venture, gliding like a ghost, 
Down the long channel to the changing coast. 

And haply after many days are done, 

In some low morning when a maiden's cheek 

Would scarcely roughen with the wind and sun, 



94 THE ADVENTURER. 

I shall descry the coast-line that I seek 
Ribbing the long horizon like a streak 

Of vapor after sunset in the West ; 

And we shall furl the swollen sails and rest. 

Then I shall mingle with another race 
Of stronger natures, and the childish past 
Will be forgotten — even to the place 
Where I embarked, the sea, the reeling mast, 
The memorable voyage — till I last 

Alter and filling out my measure grow 
Strange to myself and all the long ago. 

Or it may happen that great storms will cross 
My purposed courses, or the headwinds shift 
From point to point, while helplessly we toss 
And never reach the longed-for land or lift 
Our faces from the sea, but drive and drift 
Bearing our memories like half-healed scars 
Down the slant ocean to the streaming stars. 

We may be driven into Northern straits 
Where the half-frozen deep is dark and dense ; 
Or sailing Southward when the storm abates. 
May lie becalmed on tropic seas immense 



THE ADVENTURER. 95 

And motionless, till after long suspense 

And anxious hopes deferred from day to day, 
Set in my stubbornness 1 rust away. 

Do you remember him who went last year 
Of whom no news or tidings ever came ? 
Now in his mother's eyes the sudden tear 
Accompanies the mention of his name ; 
And when the sunset with its scarlet flame 
Kindles the West and all the East is dim. 
His sister haunts the rocks and weeps for him. 

I am determined but my heart is full 
Of sad misgivings lest with erring feet 
I never seek my door again to pull 
The latch and enter where the room is sweet 
With shadow, and the voices from the street 
Mix with my reading, and the footsteps chime 
To the delightfully recurring rhyme. 

And what is better than of afternoons 
To seek a bank beside a rippling stream 
And slumber to imaginary tunes — 
Sleeping and dreaming till all efforts seem 
Lost labor and the world itself a dream, 



96 THE ADVENTURER. 

Since we are happy, lying in the calm 

With summer poured around like fragrant balm ? 

Nevertheless I hold it is not fit 

That he to whom increasing years afford 

Enlarged abilities should idly sit 

And eat forever from his parents' board, 

Waiting till death deliver him their hoard 

Of scanty savings ; but should go alone 

To win a fit subsistence of his own. 

The slow performance of ungrateful toil — 
The labor in the mountain and the mine, 
The task of tillage on a stingy soil 
To crush from sunless grapes a sour wine 
And reap lean harvests by the after-shine 
Of pale autumnal sunsets in the frost — 
Suits them whose vigor has been early lost. 

I am not satisfied to live like these, 
Who in the night lie down to brief repose 
And rise to labor, knowing little ease 
Until the shadows of the grave enclose 
Their names and them in equal-ordered rows 
Of unambitious mounds — none come to search 
For them around the calm impartial church. 



THE ADVENTURER. 97 

But I would see the world before I die — 
Before I die and leave my bones to bleach 
And whiten with the weather or to lie 
Among the other graves beyond men's reach 
And knowledge ; while along the broad bright beacla 
The lively breezes frolic merrily 
And ships go sailing up the shining sea. 

Thou art tlie one companion of my youth, 
And I have opened to thee all my mind 
Concerning my departure that the truth 
May dwell with thee securely though thou find 
That men tell evil tales of me and bind 

Abuses to my name or that the crowd 

Revile me as ungovernably proud. 

The trees "begin to whisper in the wood ; 

The night mysteriously deep and still 

Draws on toward morning while the moon, which 
stood 

At starting on the summit of the hill, 

Has climbed and culminated. In the chill 
My breath condenses like a soul just born 
Into the world between the night and morn. 



98 THE ADVENTURER. 

Twilight invests the valley like a cloak, 

But on the mountain lies the full-faced dawn ; 

The mist is rising in a spiral smoke 

Over man's dwelling, lonely wood and lawn ; 

Insensibly the spectral tide is drawn 

Up from the ocean, and the winds consort — 
I must be going for the time is short. 



BRIEF AS WOMAN'S LOVE. 

Love me, sweet, a summer's day 
When the fields are all grown over 
With the eglantine and clover. 
For a summer's day is long — 
Love me from the sun's first ray 
To the even song ; 

From the moment when the mist 
Rises over shoal and shallow 
And the marshes where the mallow 
And the purple iris grow, 
Ere the gray-cold sky is kissed 
To a lively glow ; 

While the vivid roses blush, 
Happy in their lonely hollow 
Where the swiftly flitting swallow 
99 



lOO BRIEF AS WOMAN'S LOVE. 

Passes them at early morn 
Tn the palpitating hush 
As the day is born. 

Love me all the morning-tide 
Floating by the river's edges, 
Underneath the cool green sedges, 
While the tempered light is dim 
By the winding water- side 
Where the lilies swim. 

Though the noon relax with heat — 
As a slender silver wire 
Melting in a furnace-fire 

Leaneth from the fervid blast — 
Do not cease to love me, sweet, 
While the day shall last. 

When the afternoon is warm, 
I^et us sit with no words spoken 
Where the quietude is broken 
Only by the whistling quail 
And the bees' incessant swarm 
And the old wives' tale ; 



BRIEF AS WOMAN'S LOVE. lOl 

Told us by the lapping stream 
Of unknown and nameless places 
Filled with unfamiliar faces 
And mysterious sweet things — 
Incoherent as a dream 

That the darkness brings. 

Sit until the whip-poor-will, 

Sad to see the daylight dwindling 
In the woodland, at the kindling 
Of the glow-worm's feeble spark, 
Crieth from the sombre hill 
In the falling dark. 

Love me so a summer's day 

When the fields are all grown over 
With the eglantine and clover, 
For a day is short at best — 
Love me till the sun's last ray 
Fadeth from the West. 



AS SHE PLAYETH. 

Softly strike upon the strings 
Till the answering music rings 

Like the ripple of a stream 
Running low across a dream. 

Death stalks ever on the earth, 
Grief more frequent is than mirth ; 

So half-grave amid the gay 
Let my fancies idly stray. 

While thou murm'rest 'neath the moon, 
Humming to thy strings a tune, 

Half-forgotten ballads sweet 
In the shadow's dim retreat ; 

I02 



AS SHE PLAYETH. 1 03 

Faces rise up sharp and stern 

As the souls behind them yearn — 

Dead they many years have lain, 
" Revieiis, aviy " ; 't is in vain. 

Froissart writing of the knights, 
Villon of the lost delights, 

Drayton, Suckling, Lovelace — dead ; 
Where they passed, we too shall tread. 

Am I loved as once were they 
In the old impassioned way ? 

" Ou sont les neiges," he sang, 
Voices sweet as thine once rang, 

Clearly as thine own is clear. 
Melted with the snows last year, 

'"'' Suis-je, suis-je, suis-je belle? 
Dicies-moy." Who now can tell ? 

Though enwrapped in tinkling rhyme 
Blotted is her face with time. 



104 ^-^ ^^^ PLAYETH. 

Since the flower of thy face 
Bloometh but an instant's space, 

Let us through our moment's span 
Love each other while we can : 

In the grave to which we go, 
Thee perchance I shall not know. 



Vacant wandering of the mind ! 
Time and Love can no man bind ; 

Peace, my vainly fluttering heart — 
Come, then, let us kiss and part. 



SERENADE. 

The crickets chirp and the night-winds sigh, 
The round moon rises, the h'ght draws nigh ; 
Then come, my love, and away we '11 fly 

Over the fields of sleep. 

There 's naught to lighten but moon and star ; 
All things are different now by far 
From those which the gleaming sun doth mar — 
Mars for the fields of sleep. 

Then come, my love, and away with me ; 
Far up to the moon and the stars we '11 flee 
Where the sources of love and longing be 

Over the fields of sleep. 



105 



AT PARTING. 



Not in laughter, not in gladness, 
But in sadness 

Let us part ; 
For the days are long and dreary 
Dragging weary 

In my heart. 

As the moon her beauty covers 
When she hovers 

Ere she go ; 
Lest the earth behold her fleeing. 
And when seeing, 

Faint with woe ; 

So about thy features beaming, 
Fairer seeming 
Than the sky ; 
1 06 



AT PARTING. 10^ 

Wrap thy dark hair's mantle flowing 
At thy going 
Lest I die. 

II. 

Now draw thy glove from off thy hand, 

And let thy fingers warm 
Lie curled in mine as though they loved 

The shelter of my arm. 

And draw thy veil from off thy face 

And therein wrap my heart, 
Which beateth, ah, how wofully 

Ere soul and body part ! 

Take it ; 't is thine ; it knovvs none else ; 

'T will only beat for thee ; 
Have pity on me ere thou go, 

Leave thine to beat for me, — 

Lest those who see thee that thou hast 

Two hearts instead of one. 
May rail upon thee and may say, 

" How cruelly she 's done." 



SONG. 

The slower the river, 
The broader the stream ; 

The deeper the darkness, 
The sweeter the dream. 

The greater thy coldness, 
The harsher my pain ; 

If thou smile upon me, 
Joy Cometh again. 

The stars' gleam at midnight 
Is caught in thy hair, 

The rose-flush of morning 
Thy lips ever wear. 

Thine eyes have the shimmer 
Of vaporous moons, 

Thy voice hath the music 
Of mystical tunes. 

The sun is but darkness, 
Thy face is my light ; 

When thou art not present. 
The noonday is night. 

io8 



MIDSUMMER. 

I LIE amid soft moss, dry grass 

And the sweet scent of roses crushed, 

And think of thee. 
I hear thy voice in leaves wind-brushed, 
Thy features in the clouds that pass 
I dimly see. 

I feel thy presence when the sun 

Looks o'er the hilltop with red smile 

And wakens me, 
To look upon thy face awhile. 
And then return, when day is done. 
To dreams of thee. 



109 



A VISION FROM HERACLITUS. 

Why should one day be full of fancies rich, 
And then the next be unproductive, dull. 
As if the thoughts crept blindly through the dark 
To seek an opening and could find no such ? 
Why should the eve be richer than the day, 
And gruesome midnight richer than the eve. 
But richer than them all the time between 
The gloom of midnight and the glint of morn ? 
To those that waken not, the time of sleep ; 
But whoso wakes and listens then can hear 
The drop of souls into the gulf of time. 

All day I sat in mourning with the earth. 
Watching the rain fall and the mist arise ; 
But could not give expression to my thought. 
All eve I watched the dim lights stricken back 
From off the domed and gilded Capitol, 
And could not give expression to my thought. 
As black, reflective black, the water lay 
no 



A VISION FROM HRRACLITUS. itt 

Along the stones that paved the lonesome street, 

And could not throw a single image forth 

That did not have extraneous form before ; 

So black, reflective black, my spirit lay 

And could not body one creation forth. 

So I abode till midnight with despair ; 

But in the richness of the time between 

The gloom of midnight and the glint of morn 

I had a vision, and expression came. 

Why should not sleep be life and life be sleep ? 
We carry little life into our dreams. 
But we bring back our dreams into our life. 
Can there not be coherence in our dreams. 
An underlying law, when read through all, 
That will explain all and make sense of each ? 
We search with wearied brain and straining sight 
After the laws of this we call our life ; 
And when we find them, what forsooth are they ? 
Nought but the images projected forth 
From that same brain, the way that same brain 

works. 
Can we not do this very thing for dreams ? 

But in the richness of the time between 
The gloom of midnight and the glint of morn 
I had a vision. 



tI2 A VISION FROM HERACLlTUS. 

Past and future flowed 
Into a present, and all time rolled out, 
A turbid sea of days, into the flood, 
Eternity. My soul was carried out, 
A leaf along the stream to see the change. 
The hopeless but eternal change of things. 
And first I passed through all the change of life, 
Seeing that joy is fleeting but pain stays, 
And woe the ground upon which all men meet. 
And that all life is but a change of griefs. 
I saw my soul pass onward into sleep : 
Then I said, " Here is rest. Nirvana comes ; " 
But there was no rest from the ceaseless change. 
For sleep was all a change ; first, to a dream, 
And then change in the dream and still a change 
Back into waking, but there was no rest. 
I saw myself go down into the dark. 
The dark that lowers round the underworld : 
Then I said, ** Here is rest. Nirvana comes ; " 
But there was no rest from the ceaseless change ; 
For from the body old, new forms arose. 
And so close was the body to the soul 
That still the soul clung to it and became 
The immaterial forces that reside 
In matter and determine further change ; 



A VISION FROM HERACLITUS. II3 

However, on the weary drifting round 
They keep a measure of self-consciousness, 
A torment to them through eternity. 
Then I cried in despair : " Is there no rest ? 
Can no Nirvana come ? Must we go on 
Ever through circles of decay and growth 
Without a nothingness for the decay. 
Without perfection for the ceaseless growth ? " 
And then I saw the cold gray light of morn, 
Chill as an icicle, all stricken back 
From off the domed and gilded Capitol ; 
And black, reflective black, the water lay 
Along the stones that paved the lonesome street. 



THE EVENING OF ST. VALENTINE'S 
DAY. 

" And I a maid at your window 

To be your Valentine " etc. 
Ophelia's Song in " Hamlet," Act. IV., Sc. 5. 
" Young Drop-Heir that killed Lusty Pudding." 

" Measure for Measure." 

In sooth he ruffed it bravely 

With glistening cloak and sword ; 

To see him mince and caper 
You 'd thought him sure a Lord : 

But how he lies there spitted 
And never mouths a word ; 

I' Zooks ! So bravely did he shine, 

She vowed she 'd be his Valentine. 

E'gad, Andrew Ferrara, 

My wrong hast thou redressed ; 
114 



E VENING OF ST. VALENTINE 'S DAY. 1 1 5 

Come forth all red blood-clotted 
From out the dead man's breast, 

I '11 wipe thee and return thee 
Into thy scabbard's rest. 

I' Zooks ! So bravely did he shine, 

She vowed she 'd be his Valentine. 



Full long he fought and fiercely 
To pierce some vital spot — 

Albeit he lunged wildly. 

Yet touch me he could not ; 

A plague be on his body ! 
Let him lie there and rot. 

r Zooks ! So bravely did he shine, 

She vowed she 'd be his Valentine. 

Ah ! chevalier, my doublet ? 

The wind is waxing cold. 
Methinks he will not wanton 

To-morrow as of old. 
Nor will seduce vain women 

To love him for his gold. 
I' Zooks ! So bravely did he shine, 
She vowed she 'd be his Valentine. 



1 1 6 EVENING OF ST. VALENTINE'S DA V. 

Come, chevalier, the tavern ; 

We '11 drain a quart of sack 
To him who lies there spitted 

And prostrate on his back, 
The while his life-blood trickles 

Along the white snow-track. 
I' Zooks ! So bravely did he shine. 
She vowed she 'd be his Valentine. 



RONDEAU : ON FREYA'S DAY. 

On Freya's day I met my Fate, 

I did not vainly hesitate, 

But still went onward steadfastly 
To meet the evil that should be — 

What matter whether soon or late ? 

The Noma neither love nor hate ; 
'Neath Yggdrasil all calm they sate 
While they matured their stern decree 
On Freya's day. 

So now I stand in desperate strait 
Whence death alone can be the gate ; 
The darkness of my destiny 
Came down and gathered about me 
According to the Norns' mandate 

On Freya's day. 



117 



CHANCE. 

I RUN my risk of what will hap 

If I be taken in the trap 

The gods set for us — young or old, 
Whether it be white time and cold, 

Or the green trees run rank with sap ; 

Whether amid the dust and din 
With bloodless faces staring in 
Across the shattered fight I end. 
Or ruined by a jealous friend. 
Or murdered by my mistress' kin. 



ii8 



BEREAVEMENT. 

In the dull dreariness of autumn days 
There lies a gloomy potency of death 
Half-hinted in the rising winter's breath 

And fallen leaves along the bloomless ways : 
The midnight crickets' melancholy cry 
Is sung lamenting those who early die. 

Aloft the worn wan remnant of the moon 
Amid the giddy clouds' unheeding flight 
Goeth as haltingly adown the night 

As some sad mourner to a wedding-tune, 
That through an open door breaks on his grief 
And jars the stones he paceth for relief. 

An unborn soul, the wind goes wandering ; 
I know that it is restless on the hill 
And plain and lake, and that its voice is shrill 
119 



1 20 BEREA VEMENT.. 

With wailing over many a grievous thing, 
For in its ceaseless pacing to and fro 
It hath beheld the earth's eternal woe. 

My mind flies on the moving vacantness, 
Eager to find a little spot of earth 
Where it may feel a single season's mirth 

Before it meet the nethermost distress ; 
And yet because its time is overworn 
It may not cease continually to mourn. 

When one is old his thoughts tread the old track, 
And loiter at the long-closed doors, and hark 
To hear dead voices creep across the dark, 

And look to see the face that comes not back, 
And sigh perchance at some remembered joy 
That pleased his easy fancy as a boy : 

As when the music's master — having wrouglit 
Upon an organ's keys till its great tones 
Are volumed forth and all the building moans 

In passionate accordance with the thought — 
At last lifts hands because the work is crowned. 
The wakened chords once smitten still resound. 



BEREAVEMENT. 121 

I am a pipe that hath one time been thrilled : 
I try to picture all the paths she trod, 
Whether her step was on the frozen sod 

Of winter, or a bird's song sweetly filled 
The reeling noon of August as she passed, 
Or her light feet the autumn leaves upcast. 

In the sweet spring-time all the growing shoots, 
Oft in the night made conscious that her eyes 
Were watching wistfully to see them rise, 

Hastened to spread their intertwisting roots 
And clothe themselves with many tiny leaves : 
But now that she is dead, the forest grieves. 

Blacker and heavier grows the rushing wind '' 
Can there be such vicissitude of woe 
To make a thing inanimate mourn so ? 

Surely, as I have done, it must have sinned, 
And been sent roving by itself alone 
That through much solitude it might atone. 

Is there no waste place in this vacant night — 
No grim, black, bottomless abyss of lake 
O'er which the unimpressive ripples break, 



122 BEREAVEMENT. 

No crevice in a hill bereft of light, 
No hollow bole of some decaying tree 
Where I may hide my thoughts away from me ? 

If T could stand upon the tear-beat verge 
Of life and death this very night, and know 
That in the utter darkness where I go 

No ghost of sense could ever re-emerge 
To torture me, I should not wish to cross 
Although behind me lay a life-whole loss. 

For so we grow apace. By our defeat 
We gain. We who with clinging to the past 
Live in the present, surely shall outlast 

Them both, for we are greater. Let them treat 
Us for the moment howsoe'er they will, 
The future makes atonement for their ill. 

It is but seldom man can walk by sight, 
Groping in some far corner of his mind 
At a tense moment he perchance will find 

A flame that for an instant serves to light 
The future resurrection of dead hopes : 
Again the darkness, and he gropes and gropes. 



BE RE A VEMENT. 1 2 3 

Who knows on what path he shall meet his fate — 
On narrow lane or some broad thoroughfare, 
On mountain peak or valley of despair, 

Or in the desert after long years' wait ? 

That hour his life snaps like a broken reed ; 
The dragging past falls from him — he is freed. 



WISHES. 



I WOULD that I could write 
Some music that would smite 
Thy heart till thou wert won 
To feel some sorrow 

When my song was done. 

I would I knew some wile 
Potent to make thee smile 
On me as thou wilt do 
On him the morrow 

Surely proves untrue. 

But I am weak through love, 
A thing thou know'st nought of, 
Or thou wert less unkind — 
I prithee borrow 

Some faint lover's mind. 

124 



WISHES. 125 

II. 

Ah, if I might have a poet, 

All mine own, my laureate. 
Who would speak his love and show it 
Till I bent from mine estate ! 
Once the graces 
Of fair faces 
Made the poet's brows elate. 

Now alas ! the shadows darken 

On his heart that once was glad, 
There be very few to harken 

Since his songs have grown so sad. 
While his glory 
Is the story 
Of the ancient joys he had. 

Mine should write a tripping measure 

So the sound of it would please ; 
I would hold it as a treasure 
Brought to me from over seas — 
Gay and sprightly, 
Running lightly 
To be understood with ease. 



THE SEER. 

When he reflects on all that has been said 
In many books concerning things and men, 

And that the most part of these men are dead, 
And most of these things are beyond his ken ; 

A sense of the unreal comes over him, 
As though the figures shifted in a dream 

And in the sleep-cloud intermingled dim, 

Till he exclaims, "They are not, they but seem." 

Why does he not learn what another writes 
Instead of writing that which he can learn 

By thinking through the quietude of nights 
Over perplexities he does but turn 

And twist once more ? He knows he can not make 
Them luminous — their gloom is so intense — 
126 



THE SEER. 127 

And that at most from them he does but take 
Somewhat to patch out his experience. 

But then the extreme loneliness of man, 

His helplessness drawn out to such a length — 

He does not what he would but what he can 
And must do in the measure of his strength — 

Make him cry out because he can not see 

And with his fellows strive to come in touch : 

" If one believe I have ability, 

Indeed, I shall be able just so much." 

And so his crying is a call for aid, 

And not a murmur of his self-conceit ; 

He speaks in sorrow, hoping he has made 
Appeal at which another's heart may beat. 

He feels for those who feel not the sublime, 
Who merely in the antechamber wait ; 

Loud rings his voice across the vast of time — 
Haply by this another shall grow great. 



A DREAM. 

I HAD a momentary dream 

Of summer-time — 
As tenuous as that thin stream 

Whereby at sunny spring the crusted rime 
Goes floating off in steam. 

All memory of weary things 

Was straightway lost — 
The cruel-hearted cold that brings 

The pale starved nights of winter when the frost 
Like pointed iron stings ; 

The piteously naked trees 

That bow and bend 
In lanes across the barren leas, 

The sunset burning brightly at their end 
While all things living freeze ; 
128 



A DREAM. 129 

The pendent icicles that gem 

Each laden bough, 
And coat each little twig and stem — 

So some cold heartless queen wears round her 
brow 
A jewelled diadem. 

And in their stead the forest bare 

Green leaves and buds 
And many-colored blossoms rare, 

Whose lavished sweetness filled with fragrance 
floods 
The rapt enamoured air ; 

While twilight darkened shrub and tree, 

And from the south 
A little wind came trippingly 

To kiss the dusk with dim, delicious mouth 
Redolent of the sea ; 

The wires of a tinkling brook 

Along the wood 
Vibrated till the leafage shook 

With music and the moon on tiptoe stood 
Above the hill to look. 



130 A DREAM. 

So all was perfect and complete ; 

What summer lacks 
When it is come — once more to greet 

Its old familiar winter-wasted tracks- 
At last with lagging feet ; 



The something wanting to the light 

Of noontide sun, 
Of stars beneath the brow of night 

When the long vacant afternoon is done 
And day has taken flight ; 

The something that has left our side, 

As freshness leaves 
The lilies when the dew has dried, 

And for whose absence memory still grieves — 
The gracious dream supplied. 

But when the deepest silence lay 

On vale and hill 
In the last hour before the day, 

When o'er the land there came a creeping chill 
And all the sky was gray ; 



A DREAM. 131 

Then was the slumber-mist withdrawn, 

And I awoke 
To find my dream and youth were gone, 

While on my sorrow miserably broke 
The tardy winter-dawn. 



A GRAVE-SONG. 

This is his song, who sits beside a tomb 
In the dim dwelling-places of dead kings, 

Sits quietly and sings 
To the frail shadows rising in the room 

Of vanished things. 

When our grief ran like a torrent, 
And the grave-pit seemed abhorrent 

And immense ; 
Then we said, They have departed ; 
But the words were shallow-hearted 

To our sense. 

So perhaps when we awaken 
From the sleep that we have taken. 

It will seem 
That these things have never perished, 
Such delusions we have cherished 

In our dream. 

132 



A GRAVE-SONG. 1 33 

In the darkness of the prison 
Bright-eyed visions have arisen 

Like a bird ; 
We have taken for a token 
Thoughts we never yet have spoken 

Or have heard. 

We are moved by strange desires 
And impalpable thin fires, 

That have burned 
Like the lustre of a jewel 
With no fast-consuming fuel 

Stirred and turned. 

When the night begins to darken, 
We will raise our heads and hearken 

As we go 
To the clear illumined places 
From the dim phantasmal faces 

That we know. 

This is his song, who sits beside a tomb . 
\\\ the dim dwelling-places of dead kings. 

Sits quietly and sings 
To the frail shadows rising in the room 

Of vanished things. 



WHEN THOU ART GONE. 

When thou art gone ; the leaves will change 
On all the trees, the wooded range 
Of hills will suddenly grow strange. 

When thou art gone ; new stars will rise 

About the overclouded skies 

Of Autumn while the Summer dies. 

When thou art gone ; the winds will wail 
In the waste wood, the icy gale 
Will lacerate the earth with hail. 

When thou art gone ; the ghosts will creep 
Along the sunken land of sleep 
At midnight when the dark is deep. 

When thou art gone ; wilt thou regret 
Thy going, or wilt thou forget 
That thou and I have ever met ? 



134 



FAILURE. 

Why should the blush of sunset hold 
Its freshness on the evening's brow, 

For long ago its cheek was old, 
And there are no immortals now 
We have been told ? 

The night is full of winds and sound, 
Shadow and transitory lights, 

Strange echoes strangely interwound. 
And faces out of ruined fights 
Long underground — 

All tangled like the skein of life, 

That none may ravel out his thread 
Save by the cutting of the knife, 
And lying on his bare straight bed, 
Beyond all strife ; 
135 



1 36 FAIL URE. 

Beyond all strife, beyond all growth, 

When the sweet seasons' tongues are dumb 

And every voice of change, where loth 
The busy morning is to come 
And stir his sloth ; 

Where neither sun nor moon avails 

To break his sleep or alter it. 
When dreamily the daylight pales 

Before the dusk ; — but this is fit 
For him that fails. 

Would that the light might never run 
Along the mountain-tops again 

In currents from the pulsing sun, 
And that with all the ways of men 
I might be done ! 



UNHEARD. 

'^ Hippogriff in Air." 

If we had ever passed Love by 

Without a word, 
Or to His slightest peevish sigh 
Had not deferred ; 

Then would it be no wonder 
That He should so deny 

The hearts that break asunder, 
Or that our penitential cry 
Should go unheard. 

But we had always followed Him 

Through fire and flood, 
Or where His mystic ways were dim 
With bloom and bud 

And shadow of the flowers, 
137 



138 UNHEARD. 

O'er which His pinions swim 

Through the long summer hours — 
White-feathered wings, but on the rim 
A tinge of blood. 

Let no one flatter as before 

His withered pride ; 
And let us worship Him no more 
What e'er betide, 

After the anxious trial 
That we in patience bore, 

Rewarded by denial : — 
Close up His gilded temple-door, — 
His power has died. 



THE TIRED LOVE. 

Be glad and let the wanton little laugh 

Adorn thy lip ; 
Gather thy mouth from which Love used to quaff 

The sweet light liquor of a kiss ; let slip 
Thy hair about the cup : — 

He will not sip. 

He seems a little older than He did, 

Though some have said 
That Love is never old. His upper lid 

Shuts on the lower as His strength were dead ; 
He hardly can hold up 

His heavy head. 

He is too delicate for this cold clime, 

Too fair and frail 
For this self-conscious, disappointed time ; 
139 



I40 THE TIRED LOVE, 

He is a puny modern child, and pale 

As sorrow, being born 
To fret and wail. 

He has begun already to distrust 

His mother's word ; 
She seems old-fashioned somehow. Through the 
dust 
And din of later years she moves unheard, 

Unnoticed and forlorn — 
She seems absurd. 

He is a little sorry for the things 

He used to do ; 
Half-heartedly His conscience pricks and stings 

At the mere recollection. He is through 
With such poor joys. Is this 

The Love we knew ? 

Come, let us go away and leave Him there 

To pine and pule ; 
He would not recognize thee now nor care 
That thou hadst loved Him once, but call thee 
fool. 
And greet thy tender kiss 
With ridicule. 



FOR HER MOOD. 

Laugh and we laugh, 

Weep and we weep with thee :- 

All the unruly sea, 
Covered with foam and chaff 

Or with dark wreckage strewn, 

Still followeth the moon — 
Laugh and we laugh, 

Weep and we weep with thee. 

If thou wilt sing. 

Thy cheerful song will be 

In our poor memory 
A memorable thing 

When thou art far away ; 

Nor are the times so gray 
Nor sore our sorrowing 

But we may laugh with thee. 
141 



142 FOR HER MOOD. 

And when thy song is sad, 
As it may sometimes be 
When lovers disagree 

And all the world turns bad ; 
Let us in some low seat 
Sit silent at thy feet, 

Till thou again art glad 

And we have wept with thee. 



ON THE UPLAND. 

On the upland all is still 

As the shy approach of sleep ; 
Silently the shadows creep 

Round the lonely quiet hill. 

Morning grows to afternoon ; 

Afternoon to eventide 

When the stars come side by side, 
Waiting on the rising moon. 

Nothing after cattle-call 

Breaks the silence, save the slip 

Of a pebble or the drip 
Of the distant waterfall, 

Or the insects' feeble croon 
Or the howling of a dog, 
143 



144 ON THE UPLAND. 

Far away amid the fog 
Hoarsely barking at the moon. 

In the dusk the fire-flies 

Haunt the margin of the marsh, 
Where the tangled sedge is harsh 

And the dismal cricket cries. 

Afterwards from dark to dawn 
Sprawling spiders come and spin 
Deviously out and in 

Cobwebs on the rusty lawn. 

Placid is the pool as glass ; 
No intrusion ever jars 
That still mirror where the stars 

Rise and culminate and pass. 



IN MAY. 

All night the river running through the rushes 
Murmurs love-stories as it seeks the sea, 

And all day long the silver-throated thrushes 
Sing songs of thee. 

On the warm Southern slope the white wind-flowers, 

With here and there a purple violet. 
Made delicately bright by April showers, 

Are thickly set. 

The sunlight streaming from the West is mellow. 
The scent of spring escapes the broken mould. 

The cowslips growing in the marsh are yellow 
As burnished gold. 

Out of the wood like voiceless apparitions 

Creep the slow shadows, as the changing light 

Passes by imperceptible transitions 
From noon to night. 

145 



146 IN MA Y. 

And after sunset when the wind has shifted 
And whistles on the reeds a thin shrill tune, 

When the obscure enchanted mist has drifted 
Across the moon ; 

The elfish little dreams with human faces 
Begin to wander by the drowsy brooks ; 

The timid fairies leave their hiding-places 
In sheltered nooks ; 

And flocking to the upland lawns and levels, 
They dance in magic circles till the day 

Breaking abruptly on their reeling revels 
They flit away. 

Come : in their beds day-wearied men have hol- 
lowed 

Soft sleeping-places where they lie concealed ; 
Let us go forth unseen, unheard, unfollowed 

Across the field. 

We will recline amid the ferns and flowers. 
Watching the moonlight on the misty lawn, 

While the slow stars descend the languid hours 
Until the dawn. 



AN INVITATION. 

Oh ! cast thine idle fears away, 
And meet me in the lonely wood 

At that still hour when the day 
Ebbs swiftly like a falling flood. 

Take no precautions for the dew, 
And have no care about the heat, 

The dry pine-needles thickly strew 
The shaded wood-ways at thy feet. 

And let thy throat and arms be bare, 
And come to me at evening-rest 

With one white lily in thy hair 
And one white lily on thy breast. 



147 



IRENE : EMPRESS AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 

I. BODY. 

Thy body is as white 

As a snow-incrusted night 

Inanimate ; 
Thy face is like the flame 
On the altars built to shame, 

The insatiate, 

The great. 

Thou art breasted wondrously 
As the seething crested sea 

Along the shore ; 
And the palace-lights fall sweet 
On thy waxen, naked feet 

Passing twinkling o'er 

The floor. 
148 



EMPRESS IRENE. 1 49 

Thou dost warp the hearts of men 
In their bodies' narrow pen 

With fierce desire ; 
While their eager-burning eyes 
To thy glowing face arise 

As coals of fire 

Expire. 



II. MIND. 

Empress Irene, men call thee peace ; 

But what is peace if thou art it ? 
Surely thy brain doth never cease 

To throb and fret ; thou know'st no rest, 
Having the fatal gift of wit 

That always proves itself a dangerous guest. 



If mind the Empire of the West 

Should give thee, as it did release 
From jealousy that sore distressed 
Thy soul at thy son's rivalry ; 
Is this vile thing in truth smooth peace 
That adds another slaughter to a sea ? 



150 EMPRESS IRENE. 

Thou hast an ingenuity 

That serveth only to increase 
The darkness of thy infamy 

In leaving thee without a peer. 
Doth this in any wise bring peace 

When what men equal not that they most 
fear ? 

And fear is perilously near 

To hate. What love is there in these 
Who from the place of market leer 

At thy white litter with white plume ? 
And doth thy mind forsooth bring peace 
In leading thee unconscious to thy doom ? 

III. DOMINION. 

Along Constantinople's ways 

Thy white steeds sweep, 
And in the blaze 

Of noon debased patricians keep 
The reins, as low in dust they pace 
With eyes half-turned to watch thy face. 

Thou sittest mightily aloft ; 
One hand out cast 



EMPRESS IRENE. I51 

On cushions soft, 

The other holds a sceptre fast — 
Symbol of power too hard won 
By deeds that thou hast foully done. 

The crimson silks above thy head 

Gleam like the blood 
Of all thy dead : 

It hath been poured forth in a flood : 
Thy altars and thy images 
Shall not avail thee against these. 

Thy beauty hath ensnared man's heart ; 

Thy sapience 
Hath played its part 

And won his mind. Thy hold is tense 
Upon his flesh ; too strained to last 
Over a multitude so vast. 

For men grow reckless with their fear 

Of what may be. 
Thou hast no tear 

At sight of human misery. 
Thine eyes roam scornfully about — 
Where are those eyes thou hast stabbed out ? 



A MAY NIGHT : EXPERIMENTS. 



Cease, give over, let them pass — 
Imaged in a broken glass. 

Voiced in wailing stricken cries, 

Warped by echoes into lies — 
Weak, distorted truths, alas ! 

In the day I have no thought, 
All the universe means nought. 

Groping fiercely in the gloom, 

Beating vainly at a tomb 
Like a maniac distraught. 

In the night I gasp for breath 
At the many things it saith. 

Perfume wafted from the grape. 

Like sweet breath from woman's face, 
152 



A MAY NIGHT: EXPERIMENTS. 1 53 

Fans the sense and leaves it faint, 
Grasping at some half-formed shape 
It hath made to fill the place 
Of what answers not its plaint : 
Arbutus and columbine, 
Violet and eglantine. 
Climbing plant and creeping vine. 
Life-forms passing into death. 

All the night is woman-like : — 

Cobwebs in the heavy air 

Like the touch of scented hair 
Fierce upon my senses strike ; 

Growths of moss are moist and warm 

Flesh upon her unclad arm : 

Movements in the leaves of trees. 
Billows in the airy seas, 
Waves advancing in the breeze 

Go forth no man knoweth where. 

Many voices there may be. 
Many sounds of melody 

Piercing into this dim nook — 
Twitter of awakened bird. 

Poising with affrighted look 



154 ^ MAY NIGHT: EXPERIMENTS. 

When a breaking twig is heard ; 
Wind-brushed leafage beating time 
To the brooks that ring a chime, 
Rhythmic ripple, tripping rhyme — 
Waters running out to sea. 



Night is a soft, warm dampness. All the sense 
Flies out and beats against the narrowness 

Of gloom and quietude that, quivering dense 
Around it panting, holds it powerless. 

The perfume from the newly opened buds 
Of trees that overhang the narrow lane. 

Pours out upon the blinded sense and floods 
The reeling spirit with exquisite pain ; 

Until it makes itself a woman's shape — 
Some humanly desired, understood 

Creature upon whose shoulders it can drape 

Its longings, crying : " If she wished, she could 

" Render a sweet response to me. The gloom 
Makes me no answer when I ask a sign 



A MAY NIGHT: EXPERIMENTS. 1 55 

Of meaning ; I am beating at a tomb, 

Deceived by darkness and the day's decline." 

That bed of velvet moss so moist and warm 
Might be the rounded outline of her cheek 

Or pulsing flesh upon her unclad arm — 
She seems so real, yet she will not speak. 

In the thick depths the murmur of a brook 
Croons low ; the twitter of a wakened bird — 

Hush ! nearer yet the wind-brushed leafage shook, 
A twig broke or some tiny creature stirred. 

" Speak, if there be an answering voice in thee ; 

Or if like passions through thy being surge. 
Let them pass out and meet the soul in me, 

And our two natures yearningly shall merge 

" Themselves to one." The dewy cobwebs sway, 
And lightly flying on the languid air, 

Float softly o'er the windings of the way 
And brush across the lips like rain-wet hair. 

The breeze that gives her breath can hardly force 
A passage through the air turned molten lead, 



156 A MAY NIGHT: EXPERIMENTS. 

And when she sighs her borrowed voice is hoarse— 
" Whisper to me thy broken thoughts unsaid ; 

" Then I shall know that thou can'st surely feel, 
That I delude myself with no vain hope, 

But hold my aspirations to the real, 

Yearn in the darkness, in the silence grope 

" After the tangible." The dense black block 
Of forest shoulders solidly and makes 

An end : the tide of night assaults the rock, 
Heaves swellingly an instant and then breaks. 

Her robe once black has faded to a gray ; 

The trees drip with the damp and stand forlorn 
That the life-giving charm has fled away. 

Hearing the cock crow in the sodden morn. 



ON THE RIVER. 

While the moon hangs on the verge, 
While the lights and shadows merge 
On the surface of the river 
Softly going, 
Gently flowing 
With no current left to urge 
Us along — a tiny shiver. 
Nothing else ; 

Draw in closer to the shore, 
Where the rushes hover o'er 
Their reflection in the water ; 
As we linger, 
Dip your finger — 
See, as I do ; now once more. 

Ah ! my image, then I caught her, 
Now she 's flown. 
157 



158 ON THE RIVER. 

It 's the very place I seek ; 
•Here I readily may speak 

What I 've many days been thinking. 
So I asked you. 
Have I tasked you 
Overmuch ? It is my freak ! 
Call it so. The moon is sinking 
Rapidly. 

Standing up athwart the stars — 
See, the rushes look like bars ; 
And behind, the water lapping — 
In their keeping 
Sadly weeping 
Like a prisoner with scars, 

Over thee the dark, enwrapping 
Shadows fall. 



That is well ; I would not look 
On your face. See, in that nook 

How the mist-shape twists and hovers. 

No delaying ! 

I was saying — 
Pshaw, it sounds out of a book — 



ON THE RIVER. 1 59 

We can be no longer lovers — 
Did you groan ? 

No ? I scarcely thought you would ; 
There 's no reason why you should, 
You who think of nought but learning, 
And are bending 
Without ending 
O'er dry books. Who thought you could 
Know the passionate sad yearning 
Of lost love ? 

Really you 're too passionless, 
You respond to no caress ; 

We could never please each other ; 
You 're not human, 
And a woman 
Must have one who does possess 
All the weaknesses that smother 
A man's soul. 

So we 've wasted precious nights 
And the dim-lit hours' delights, 

While the time we should be spending 



l6o ON THE RIVER. 

Here in kissing 
We are missing, 
Just because your face affrights 

Love from me. We 'd best be ending ; 
Let us go. 



Out again into the stream ; 
Like the faces in a dream 
Go the ripples sliding by us, 
Oh, how lonely ! 
If you 'd only 
Break the silence ! But you seem 
Like a dead man. No one nigh us, 
I 'm afraid. 



For the moon has sunk from sight ; 
Black the water, black the night, 
Black your features unrelenting. 
Speak ! Accuse me. 
Chide me, use me 
How you will ; but ease my fright 
By your voice's sound assenting 
To my own. 



ON THE RIVER. l6l 

Not a word ! You change your place 
With that strange look on your face, 

Strange, half-sorrowing, half-mocking ; — 
What 's its meaning ? 
With your leaning 
So far over that dark space 

You have set the boat to rocking. 
Please sit still. 

God in heaven ! Can it be 
That you mean to murder me ? 

Stop and listen. See me kneeling, 
I was jesting. 
Merely testing 
If you loved me worthily. 

Help ! The sky and stars are reeling. 
Help ! I drown. 



FUTILITY. 

She is pure as a thought of the dead ; 

Her face is a rain-wet day, 
With its hint of sorrowful things ; 
Her hair is the mist that clings 

To the hills grown vague and gray. 

She lies and weeps on her bed, 
When she sees the wan day die, 

For she knows that the sun's decline 

Is a symbol and a sign, 
Is a curse athwart the sky. 

Aloof in her chamber's height 
She doth not cease to weep 
Till all the shadow teems 
With shapes of hollow dreams — 
When she lapses into sleep. 
162 



FUTILITY. 163 

She awakes in the depth of the night, 

Through the stress of her soul's unrest ; 
When the wakened watch-dogs bark 
And the cocks crow loud in the dark 
As the moon descends the West. 



She seeks for the hidden thought, 

As her sisters seek for love. 
Her candle burneth dim 
To a tapering flame, and slim 
As the curve of her lips above. 

She has visions of deeds unwrought, 
Whose fruition should be hers ; 

But there comes a breath of doubt 

That puffs her candle out. 
And her spirit veers and errs. 

She lifts the painted pane 

That the stars may give her hope ; 
But black on the sky, the trees 
Are shaken by the breeze, 

And the branches sway and slope. 



164 FUTILITY. 

The spray of the broken rain 
Flies sharp on her hair and lips, 

And sad in the gloom she hears 

The sob and fall of tears, 

As the heaven weeps and drips. 

Then the hours of her youth 
Troop by in the dark and sing : 

"We are gay and wanton-faced ; 

Come now for we pass in haste 
With swift and silent wing." 

But she waits for the voice of truth ; 

For the spell shall be destroyed, 
And her life will no more be vain 
In an aching night of pain, 

If a light arise on the void. 



SILENCE. 

How shall I sing of pleasant new-mown fields 

In summer afternoons ; 
Or calm hushed evenings when the sunlight 
yields 

To low, broad, swaying moons ; 

Or some melodious song that clings about 

The busy human throngs — 
How shall I sing when I have come to doubt 

The value of all songs ? 

It is not that the earth holds less delight 

Than it was wont to hold — 
There is the splendor of the dropping night, 

The stars are in its fold. 

The flowers on the lonely wooded hills 

Are blossoming as fair, 
And sweetly mirrored in the placid rills 

Lie pale blue depths of air. 
165 



1 66 SILENCE. 

But to the scene alone its beauties cleave, 

Not to the words whereby 
I strive to picture how the branches weave 

Strange patterns on the sky. 

So I am silent till my time be come ; 

And if I find no voice, 
Then am 1 quite contented to be dumb 

Where I have made my choice, 

Contented, though at night may come old ghosts 

Of days, and fear of days 
That will be dead, to harass me in hosts 

Upon blockaded ways, 

Contented, though the world with frowning face 

Look in upon my quest — 
Shall I take heed of failure or disgrace 

When I have done my best ? 



THE END OF SUMMER. 



The windy little ripples run 

Across the tops of waving wheat, 
The ponds lie sleeping in the heat, 
The crows fly over one by one, 
And summer lingers in the sun. 

Another field of grass has grown 
In place of that cut off in June ; 
And though the second perish soon, 

A few brief pleasures it will own 

Before it be unkindly mown. 

This is the time for one to stray 
Where man infrequently obtrudes 
Amid the woodland solitudes, 

Where summer's luxury holds sway 

A little moment ere decay, 
167 



1 68 THE END OF SUMMER. 

While lying in the sun he dreams 
More sweetly for the lack of sleep ; 
Into his thoughts meander deep 
The mingled voices of the streams, 
Till very fair his vision seems — 

Of maiden in a vist'ed lane, 

To whom the heaps of golden-rod 
Caught at her throat and bosom nod, 
Who is in gladsome weather fain 
To time her steps to some refrain 

That ripples blithely as she goes. 
So youthfully he dreams of love. 
Till darkness on the leaves above 
And tree-trunks casting lengthened rows 
Of shadows hint the daylight's close. 

Then hastily he wakes to mark 
The weary steps of his return. 
Stopping at intervals to spurn 
The hindering branches or to hark — 
While sadly falls the early dark. 



THE END OF SUMMER. 1 69 

II. 

Now in the night the air is chill ; 
And in the stead of peepers' song 
That roused the Spring, the crickets throng 

The meadows underneath the hill, 

And chirping lustily they fill 

The spaces of the night with sound 
Announcing that the Fall is nigh ; 
A youthful moon swims in the sky 

Far down on the horizon's bound ; 

A few dead leaves bestrew the ground. 

If one is old, his failing sight 

Sees visions from the fading past 
And such few faces as outlast 

The years — and so for half the night 

He lingers by the firelight. 

But when the last sad embers die, 
He looks to see how Summer fares — 
The rising of a storm impairs 
The quietude that reigned on high, 
And clouds are swept across the sky. 



I/O THE END OF SUMMER. 

The fickle wind veers in the vane, 

The moon has left the troubled West ; 
And later as he sinks to rest, 

He hears the rattling window-pane 

Monotonously drip with rain. 

The marches of the Fall are crossed ; 

When clear and cold the morning breaks, 
The rugged oak forlornly shakes 

With half its wealth of leafage lost ; 

The earth is shivering with frost. 

That checks the river's restless flow 
Along its bare and whitened edge, 
Where whistling in the stiffened sedge 

Autumnal winds swing to and fro, 

And life is colorless as snow. 



SONNETS. 



lyi 



I. 

SUNSET. 

The sullen sun beyond the lone dark reach 

Of marsh burns out his strength, and the day dies ; 
Across in the weird East where the moon flies 

The ragged clouds with her hold secret speech — 

So dark indeed the counsel that they teach 
That lest one read their secret in her eyes 
They draw about her, and the winds arise 

Drowning their voice, and each concealeth each. 

Yea, vain to seek the secret of the years 

Whispered unto the listening moon by night 
Withoiit a breathing pause in her swift flight, 

When the fierce glances of the sun she fears 
Are hidden as he first withdraws his light, 

Leaving the night-wind and the wail of tears. 



173 



II. 

WRITTEN IN A VOLUME OF SONNETS. 

Not as a dread and evil-boding dream 

That glaring stands beside us through the night, 
The while we feel the presence' subtle blight 

And hear the round-eyed owlet's gloomy scream — 

Not so the spirits of the great dead seem, 

But rather like some white cloud's fleecy flight 
Leaving a trace of sorrow faint and light. 

Which tarries only till the sun's quick beam. 

For ghosts of great men are but words and deeds : — 

The deed observed more in the outer strife 
And more apparent in the world's great needs ; 
But yet the word too ne'er availeth nought : 
The one is chiselled on the cliff of life, 
The other written in the book of thought. 



174 



III. 
NEW YEAR. 

Enwrapt in darkness, girt about with fear, 
The snow drawn like a hood around the face, 
With slowly groping, hesitating pace 

And eyes fixed on the darkness like a seer 

Who readeth in the future as if near 

The promise of a peaceful resting-place : 
So like the others of his short-lived race 

Moves on to dissolution the Old Year. 

If thou now goest down to meet the dead 

And tell them of the living they have known, 
Forget not him who sadly sat alone 

In the dark dead midnight to see thee go — 
Be not forgetful of the life he led 

That haply she be listening and know. 



175 



IV. 
MIDNIGHT. 

So calm the ever mournful shade of night, 
So dim the dusty roadway winds along, 
Though filled by an innumerable throng 

Of pallid spectres following time's flight, 

Drawn by his stern hand's everlasting might 
And all unheralded by trump or song. 
So fierce the hours' rushing and so strong 

That scarce I know if this dim sense be sight. 

If so alive ; when we at last are dead, 
And eye shall see no longer nor ear hear, 
When all the sense is numb to hope or fear ; 
What will it matter then — old joy or woe — 
What deeds were done once or what words were 
said ? 
We shall not then be conscious nor shall know. 



176 



V. 
REST. 

Like one who wakens from a dreamless sleep 
And hears the water dripping from the roof, 
And sees running across the night's black woof 

The silver threading of a star ; while deep 

With peace his spirit lies and will not keep 
Grasp on the past that seems so far aloof, 
Now when the day's stern task and trying proof 

Uplift a space, and he has ceased to weep. 

As such an one awakens into calm : 
So would I waken one time after life, 

A single instant when death's pangs are o'er. 
To feel my utter freedom from the strife 
And my release from every fear of harm — 
Then turn unto my sleep forever more. 



177 



VI. 
HEREDITY. 

When I reflect on all that has been done 
In unremembered ages ere I came, 
And that my life was kindled at a flame 

Lit from another and preceding one 

Of sequent torches reaching till the sun 
Embodied fire first in mortal frame, 
And that I am a part of many a name 

And many a nature, yet am wholly none : 

Then do I question whether I am I ; 
Until I see a cloud in purple fold 

Suspend the Ganges, Amazon, and Nile, 
And all the feeding streams that multiply 

Their tides of which the cloud is made ; the 
while 
It keeps its individual form and mould. 



178 



VII. 
RESTITUTION. 

As at the close of some sweet summer's day, 
Which passing gently out behind the hill 
Is mourned in woodland by the whip-poor-will, 

The moisture — that at early morning lay 

Along the ground but that the thirsty ray 
Of noon-sun stole from every little rill 
Until the greedy heat had drunk its fill — 

Unto the earth the evening dews repay : 

So when the envious distance holds your face 
And jealously abstracts you from mine eye. 
Leaving me lonely in a lonely place, 

Sadly to watch the dark stream creep along ; 
A gentle-hearted memory draws nigh 

And maketh me atonement for the wrong. 



179 



VIII. 
MISTAKEN. 

We have no hope of succor — we who fight 
Without a standard in the midmost fray, 
A ragged remnant brought at last to bay, 

Contending vainly with the foes' despite 

Until beneath the cover of the night, 
The wretched ending of a futile day, 
Wounded and worn we drag ourselves away 

To die as wild beasts die, deep out of sight. 

I would that I had been aware of this 
Before my feet had come so far to find 
The battle and my ruin ! I was blind 

In such a cause to struggle so amiss ; 

In vain were love's half-proffered lips resigned 

And wasted all my sacrifice of bliss. 



i8o 



IX. 
MUTATION. 

How joyful was I when I did conceive 
The precious hope I held a single hour ; 
So bright it was with promises of power 

I wondered at it, fearful to believe 

That such an one as I could so receive 
Possessions fit to be a princess' dower : 
Then in the dust my haughty thoughts did 
cower 

And lost me what no effort can retrieve. 

My hope was like a sudden flaring fire 

That slight and ineffectual branches nurse ; 

Until the slender store it feeds on fails, 

It sends on high a glowing crimson spire, 

Then on a sudden all its splendor pales, 

Leaving the darkness of the night far worse. 



X. 

PAST PRIME. 

I JUDGE by this quiescence I am old : 

I watch the dark, damp shadows 'neath the hill 
At eventide calmly. Without a thrill 

I see the glory of the sunset rolled 

Up to the zenith ; crimson heaped on gold 
Moves not my heart, so still, so deadly still ; 
Nor those last notes the tender thrushes trill 

To reassure their mates when shades infold 

The sombre earth. Then when the crickets sing 
In multitudes their simple songs that show 

The little lives beside the great, they bring 
No longings as they used ; while to and fro 

The winds of Autumn in the tree-tops swing 
But have no voice — and I am old, I know. 



182 



XI-XII. 
BLOOD-ROOT. 



And in my dream I came upon a place ; 

A long, low, grassy slope, I seemed to know ; 

A little thin complaining water's flow 
Was passing in a hollow at its base ; 
The pallid blood-root flourished on its face — 

As pale as dead man's cheek, which the great 
woe 

Has whitened ere a single night could go, 
But whence, if bruised, the blood runs red apace. 

I did not know the spot by memory : 

'T was that my heart first shuddered, then stood 
still 

While through my very being went a thrill — 
As one a curious spotted stick doth see 
And laying hand upon it hastily 

Findeth he holds a snake clammy and chill. 



183 



XI-XII. 

BLOOD-ROOT. 

II. 

Although a dream, the terror lingers yet ; 

And so perchance when I unwept, unknown, 

In the soul's future shall go on alone, 
I shall come so on some old sin unvvet 
Sufficiently with tears of wild regret. 

Some horror dragging forth the deep-breathed 
groan. 

Some deed for which no penance can atone. 
Or thought on which the mark of Cain is set. 

For in our life unheeded swings the beat 
Of consciousness upon our secret sin — 

As tongues of thunder shaking the retreat 
Of winding waters, grow exceeding thin 
When heard through cart-wheels' rumble and the 
din 

Of haggling in the brazen city-street. 



184 



XIII. 
INTERMISSION. 

Our life has meaning. Under the vague dome 
Of heaven we have journeyed day by day, 
And only seen at morn the workers stray 

Afield, at noon the bees construct their comb, 

At eve the tired cattle coming home — 

All meaningless ; but when has cleared away 
The final hill, then through the shrouding gray 

And mist of distance we have looked to Rome. 

Yet it is sweet to loiter on the road 

Into the future that we may hear sing — 

Like a brook's stream where no stone hath abode 
Without a soft moss-growth for covering — 

Some old musician whose song simply flowed 
Because life seemed a simple little thing. 



185 



XIV. 
RESURRECTON. 

Have they a resurrection — they whose eyes 
Have been directed always to the earth, 
Whose faces have been turned to idle mirth 

Away from lofty thought and high emprise, 

Whose souls have been forgot ? And if they rise 
Fleshless among the souls of greater worth, 
How shall they live in such unwonted dearth. 

What shall concern them when the body dies ? 

For they are like a dweller in a room, 

A poor small room, when he who sits therein 
Blockades his window to the cheerful sun, 
Shuts out the city's active living din 
And makes himself accustomed to his gloom : — 
One day the house falls ; lo ! he is undone. 



i86 



XV. 
BIRTH. 

I CAME upon her sitting where the sea 
Had swallowed up a portion of the land 
And made an inlet. To the yellow strand 

I came somehow ; but where my home may be, 

What winding pathways had conducted me 
Until I found her sitting on the sand, 
Whether blind chance or some love-guided hand 

Had thrust me thither, is a mystery. 

I had no memories until the lights 

Of those great eyes, that seemed to watch the strife 
Of ocean, turned ; and there I saw the sites 

Of ruined cities, faces that were rife 
With out-worn passions, lost and broken fights : — 

Then I made conscious wandered into life. 



187 



XVI. 

NOT TO BE. 

I SHALL lie down and none will me arouse 
In the care-taking morning or the swoon 
Of the still languorous warm afternoon, 

When by the deeper brooks the cattle browse, 

Or day's suspension when the sun doth house 
His aching head beyond the ribbing dune 
In the curved ocean, or the night of moon 

And falling stars — but I shall always drowse. 

Life will go on for those who cannot choose. 
In the familiar way. The startled flame 

Of chafing and impassioned blood suffuse 
The cheeks of men and women till they name 

Old futile questions to the life I lose ; 

And getting no reply, embrace their shame. 



XVII. 
SEPARATION. 

As lies the level of an upland lawn, 
Faint with sweet mem'ries when it first 

assumes 
Its nightly covering of purple glooms, 

While the great sun is silently withdrawn ; 

Or later when the day is wholly gone, 
And it is resting drowsy with perfumes 
Of newly springing buds and apple-blooms 

Until the coming of the amber dawn : — 

So lie my shadowed thoughts and mutely yearn 
Over thy dim departure that their stream 
Of daylight is cut off — their sun's bright beam ; 

While lesser lights of heaven vainly burn 
Above the quiet of their fragrant dream 

Through the dull meanwhile waiting thy return. 



189 



XVIII. 
ABSENCE. 

Alas! thine absence, Love, will do me wrong. 
For I shall go forlornly here and there. 
And in the height of summer find earth bare 

Of beauty as though wintry winds were strong 

On the bleak hills ; autumnal thoughts will throng 
In the lone nights, and I shall scarcely dare 
To breathe the fall-corrupted August air 

With sight of thee unsweetened all day long. 

The knowledge of thy going mars the days 
Ere thy departure with foretaste of grief, 
Nor will my heart-sick hours know relief 
Till thou, my season, come again to raise 
The summer from its dull despondent ways — 
Therefore, I pray thee, let thy stay be brief. 



igo 



XIX. 
LEAR. 

I HAVE beheld strange deaths — the death of hope, 
And youth low-lying with its limbs disspread 
On the cold ground ; and I have seen love dead 

And its once sweetly tempered servants mope 

Peevishly, sitting on the grave's gray slope ; 
And I have known the soul to go unfed 
Till it lay starved and stiffened in its bed, 

Even beneath the heaven's broad free cope. 

But I, thank God, have never seen before 
The reason drowning in the darkened brain. 
While all along the passageways of pain 

Great outward-risen winds and waters pour 
Over the broken barriers, and vain 

Is the last struggle at the shattered door. 



X91 



XX. 

UNANSWERED. 

Why art thou silent ? Is there anything 
That into love's still lips can put a breath 
Or are they frozen in the cold of death 

Forever ? Have they ceased from murmuring 

In the soft moonlight, as a straining string 

Breaks with the stress of the wild words it saith ? 
Hath their sound ceased as music perisheth, 

And henceforth shall I never hear them sing? 

Why art thou silent ? Thou hast need to speak 
Now when the distance and the lapse of days 
Darkens upon thy dimly outlined cheek 

Like a long shadow from the sun's eclipse, 
And I can know thee on the darkened ways 
Only by some chance whisper from thy lips. 



igz 



XXI. 
INDULGENCE. 

Because thou hast compassion on the corn 
After its season stacked in useless sheaves 
Amid the stubble where the sunlight weaves 

Its golden threads no longer, nor the morn 

Blossoms with ruddy summer, but the torn 
Rack of the clouds in early darkness leaves 
Long shadows, while the whining night-wind 
grieves. 

Making the winter utterly forlorn ; 

Thou wilt be filled with pity of the song 
That leaves the singer's desolation bare. 

And does the patience of the hearer wrong ; 
And thou wilt substitute for his poor air 
Some concords of thine own, a little share 

Of all thy sweet innumerable throng. 



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XXII. 
LIFE AND DEATH. 

The kisses of thy mouth have made me weak ; 

For there is nothing else of worth in life, 

Neither repose nor yet the hard hot strife 
Of manful battle ; naught to shun or seek 
Except the dipping dimple in thy cheek 

And the lips curved to meet it, laughter-rife — 

That or the operation of the knife, 
The little holes through which the blood-drops 
leak. 

Life is at best a shadow on the wall 

That pleases children, death an idle tale 
Of ghosts told in the nursery when pale 

And low the lights burn ; but such shadows pall 
And even story-tellers' fancies fail — 

These things are nothing ; thou, my Love, art all. 



194 



XXIII. 
DIVISION. 

Beloved, since thou art so sad of face 
And sorrowful, while in thine altered air 
Appears the shadow of a settled care, 

And from thy tender cheeks the tears erase 

Their native laughter and begin to trace 
The tangled lines of pain ; I would repair 
Thy loss by laying down my life, or bear 

Thy grief for thee and suffer in thy place. 

And though I may not venture to assume 

Thy weight of sorrow, for we walk alone 
And none can suffer in another's room ; 

Yet do not keep me longer from thy side, 
And for that I have loved thee and have known 
Few of thy joys, thy griefs with me divide. 



195 



XXIV. 
EVASION. 

Let us lie down and rest. The day is old ; 
It is not just that we should work by night 
When other laborers have had the light 

Of the clear morning-sun. Lie close and fold 

The blankets round thy feet against the cold, 
For they are over delicate and slight 
For the world's furrow when the frost lies white 

And shivering along the rigid mould. 

No doubt another, since it must be done, 
Will rise and labor for us while we sleep, 

Laying his hand to our neglected work ; 
No doubt another will awake and keep 
Until the reappearance of the sun 

The necessary vigil that we shirk. 



196 



XXV. 
LOST DAYS. 

I COUNT the days I have not seen thee lost, 
Although my necessary tasks be done 
According to assignment one by one, 

Though I have seen the face of life, and tossed 

About the peopled world, and rashly crossed 
The desert sea with whirlwinds overrun — 
I hold those days as days without a sun, 

As barren winter-midnights in the frost. 

For just as some belated bird repeats 
His single song of summer while he beats 

With trembling wing against the leafless tree ; 
Ever my restless spirit from the streets 
Of foreign cities, from the shifty sea 
Turned, as it now turns from its tasks, to thee. 



'97 



XXVI. 
AWAKENING. 

I WAS like one who sleeps his life away 
Before I saw thee first ; across the deep 
Of whose profound, unfathomable sleep 

Through the long hours of the dawn's delay 

Drift the delusive dreams that cheat the day, 
While doubtfully along the Eastern steep 
The laggard feet of morning blindly creep. 

Lost in the darkness, on the hills astray. 

I waken with the vision in mine eyes : 
Far to the East above the troubled morn 
The ragged cloud-drift, like a banner borne 

Into the forefront of the battle, flies ; 

The wind, exulting like a trumpet, screams, 
Careering vanward — and I rise from dreams. 

THE END. 



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